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Functional and Pathophysiological-morphological Correlates of Neurodegenerative Diseases
Dušek, Pavel ; Roth, Jan (advisor) ; Baláž, Marek (referee) ; Menšíková, Kateřina (referee)
This doctoral thesis pictures neurodegenerative diseases as a multilevel process, describes various correlates on each pathophysiological level, and presents selected correlates in Huntington's disease and mitochondrial membrane protein-associated neurodegeneration (MPAN). It uses various methodological approaches such as basic laboratory research, clinical work, imaging, database formation, and database summary. Changes in the amount of respiratory chain complex I and respiratory chain complex IV in buccal ep- ithelial cells of Huntington's disease patients are described. The insufficient power of optical coherence tomography as a biomarker in Huntington's disease is demonstrated. Various phenotypes of MPAN are summarized, and an association between C19orf12 mutation and visual impairment is confirmed. A phenotype of a well-documented case of MPAN is presented. Keywords: C19orf12 mutation; color discrimination; contrast sensitivity; huntingtin; Huntington's disease; iron accumulation; mitochondrial membrane-protein associated neurodegeneration; multilevel process; neurodegeneration; optical coherence tomogra- phy; parkinsonism; respiratory chain complex; retinal nerve fiber layer thickness
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Monitoring of mutant huntingtin influence on autophagy in human neural stem cells
Zezulová, Kristýna ; Vodička, Petr (advisor) ; Kohoutek, Jiří (referee)
Huntington's disease is an inherited neurodegenerative disease caused by a mutation in the huntingtin gene. Its expressed product, mutated huntingtin protein, aggregates in the cell and affects wide range of cellular processes, including proteostasis mechanisms. Autophagy, classified among the mechanisms of cellular degradation and recycling of proteins and other cellular components, is one of the processes disrupted by the presence of mutated huntingtin. The goal of the project was to prepare a tandem genetic construct (fusion protein LC3-EGFP-mCherry) using chemically competent bacteria by molecular cloning methods, transfect it into prepared human lines carrying both normal and mutated huntingtin, and thus modify the lines to transiently, and if possible also constantly express this sensor of autophagy activity. Such modified lines allow monitoring the effect of the presence of normal and mutated HTT on the course of autophagy and also provide experimentally suitable conditions for influencing autophagy in these cells using inhibitors and activators from the group of small molecules. Two types of LC3-GFP-mCherry/RFP fusion proteins were successfully prepared by molecular cloning and transiently introduced by lipofection into the control ARPE19 lines. Expression of the constructs in human H9 NSC...
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Characterization of the effect of human mutated huntingtin on the neuronal stem cell differentiation.
Budková, Kateřina ; Vodičková, Kateřina (advisor) ; Romanyuk, Natalyia (referee)
Huntington's disease (HD) is an autosomal dominant neurodegenerative disorder caused by an expansion of the CAG codon repeat in the huntingtin gene (HTT). This expansion causes a change in the biochemical properties of the huntingtin protein (HTT), its aggregation and cellular toxicity, which leads to the degeneration of brain neurons, especially in the striatum. Induced pluripotent cells (iPSC) derived directly from HD patient cells can serve as a model system for in vitro modeling of this disease. Because neuronal dysfunctions occur in HD patients years before the first clinical symptoms manifest, this model system may help elucidate the mechanisms that precede the onset of the disease. The aim of this thesis was to differentiate iPSCs (derived from fibroblasts of HD patients and healthy controls) into neural stem cells (NSCs) and subsequently into neuronal cell populations and to monitor molecular changes in their differentiation associated with the effect of mutated HTT. The differentiation process was monitored based on selected markers using immunofluorescence, western blot and qRT-PCR. We were able to generate stable NSC lines derived from 3 control and 3 HD iPSC lines. All 6 NSC lines were able to further differentiate into neural populations. At the transcriptional level, we found a higher...
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Huntington's disease modeling and stem cell therapy in spinal cord disorders and injury
Hruška-Plocháň, Marián ; Motlík, Jan (advisor) ; Bjarkam, Carsten (referee) ; Roth, Jan (referee)
Neurological disorders affect more than 14% of the population worldwide and together with traumatic brain and spinal cord injuries represent major health, public and economic burden of the society. Incidence of inherited and idiopathic neurodegenerative disorders and acute CNS injuries is growing globally while neuroscience society is being challenged by numerous unanswered questions. Therefore, research of the CNS disorders is essential. Since animal models of the CNS diseases and injuries represent the key step in the conversion of the basic research to the clinics, we focused our work on generation of new animal models and on their use in pre-clinical research. We generated and characterized transgenic minipig model of Huntington's disease (HD) which represents the only successful establishment of a transgenic model of HD in minipig which should be valuable for testing of long term safety of HD therapeutics. Next, we crossed the well characterized R6/2 mouse HD model with the gad mouse model which lacks the expression of UCHL1 which led to results that support the theory of "protective" role of mutant huntingtin aggregates and suggest that UCHL1 function(s) may be affected in HD disturbing certain branches of Ubiquitin Proteasome System. Traumatic spinal cord injury and Amyotrophic Lateral...
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Monitoring of the development of the Huntington's disease in transgenic minipigs with N-terminal part of human mutated huntingtin: biochemical and motoric changes of F0, F1 and F2 generation
Kučerová, Šárka ; Ellederová, Zdeňka (advisor) ; Klempíř, Jiří (referee)
Huntington's disease (HD) belongs to neurodegenerative disorders. It is a monogenic disease caused by trinucleotic CAG expansion in exon 1 of gene coding protein huntingtin. Even though the cause of HD is known since 1993, the pathophysiology and cure for HD reminds to be found. The animal models are being used for better understanding of HD. The most common animal models for HD are rodents, especially mice but it was also important to create large animal models, which will be more like human. Therefore, TgHD minipig was created in Academic of Science in Liběchov in 2009. This model was created by microinjection of lentiviral vector carrying N-terminal part of human HTT with 124 repetitive CAG in exon 1. This model is viable and in every generation, is part of the offspring transgenic. In this thesis, I specialized to biochemical and behavioral changes of this model. I compared transgenic and wild type siblings. I found that biochemical changes are manifested mostly by increased level of mtHtt fragments in testes and brain. In behavioral part of this thesis I established new methods for testing behavioral changes in this model. The introduced methods showed some changes between wild type and transgenic animals at the tested ages but these changes were not significant due to the low number of...
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Interplay between mutated huntingtin and precancerogenous status in mammalian cells.
Butalová, Nikola ; Baxa, Monika (advisor) ; Koudelková, Lenka (referee)
Huntington's disease is a serious hereditary disorder that causes mortification of neurons. The disease affects individuals around the age of 40. Its characteristics are involuntary movement of the limbs and a progressive dementia. This disorder is currently without any treatment and always ends with patient dying within a period of 15 years after the first symptoms are discovered. Special relation between Huntington's disease and malign neoplasia was observed at the end of the 20th century. This relation shows lower degree of cancer among the patients with this neurodegenerative disorder compared to the general population. An expanded sequence of a CAG section probably protects these persons against advancement of cancer. Creation of an applicable experimental model with characteristic highly resembling human body was necessary for superior research of this disease. This model can be represented by a transgene mini pig carrying a mutated protein huntingtin - tgHD pig. Another model of a mini-pig showing hereditary occurrence of malign lesions - MeLiM pig was created to research cancer. These two specific lines of mini-pigs were crossbred resulting in not only piglets with melanoma and transgene piglets with mtHTT but also transgene piglets having melanoma at the same time. Furthermore the same...
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Porcine models for Huntington disease
Růna Vochozková, Petra ; Motlík, Jan (advisor) ; Bohačiaková, Dáša (referee) ; Fulková, Helena (referee)
The causative role of the huntingtin (HTT) gene in Huntington's disease (HD) has been identified more than 25 years ago. The extension of CAG repeat stretch over 39 repeats in exon 1 of one HTT allele results in full penetrance of this neurodegenerative disorder. While the identification of the causative mutation raised hopes that development of the therapeutic compound will be easily achievable, the patients and their families are still waiting for treatment until now. The main reason for that might be the complex cellular function HTT that makes the determination of the pathologic mechanism difficult and the development of treatments even more challenging. Although a lot of different animal models have been generated until now, establishing a suitable model has still not been achieved yet. Due to its anatomy, physiology, and genetics, the minipig seems to be a suitable candidate for neurodegenerative disease models. Indeed, the existing Transgenic (Tg) Libechov minipig model manifests signs typical for HD in patients, but on the other hand significant inconsistencies have also been observed. The finding of malformation that partially shows the situation in human patients is true for both, the male reproductive tract as well as for the brain. The reason for this might be the fact the genetic...
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Modelovanie ochorenia a štúdium regeneračných procesov v Huntingtonovej chorobe a ALS in vivo
Hruška-Plocháň, Marián
Neurological disorders affect more than 14% of the population worldwide and together with traumatic brain and spinal cord injuries represent major health, public and economic burden of the society. Incidence of inherited and idiopathic neurodegenerative disorders and acute CNS injuries is growing globally while neuroscience society is being challenged by numerous unanswered questions. Therefore, research of the CNS disorders is essential. Since animal models of the CNS diseases and injuries represent the key step in the conversion of the basic research to the clinics, we focused our work on generation of new animal models and on their use in pre-clinical research. We generated and characterized transgenic minipig model of Huntington's disease (HD) which represents the only successful establishment of a transgenic model of HD in minipig which should be valuable for testing of long term safety of HD therapeutics. Next, we crossed the well characterized R6/2 mouse HD model with the gad mouse model which lacks the expression of UCHL1 which led to results that support the theory of "protective" role of mutant huntingtin aggregates and suggest that UCHL1 function(s) may be affected in HD disturbing certain branches of Ubiquitin Proteasome System. Traumatic spinal cord injury and Amyotrophic Lateral...
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Porcine models for Huntington disease
Růna Vochozková, Petra ; Motlík, Jan (advisor) ; Bohačiaková, Dáša (referee) ; Fulková, Helena (referee)
The causative role of the huntingtin (HTT) gene in Huntington's disease (HD) has been identified more than 25 years ago. The extension of CAG repeat stretch over 39 repeats in exon 1 of one HTT allele results in full penetrance of this neurodegenerative disorder. While the identification of the causative mutation raised hopes that development of the therapeutic compound will be easily achievable, the patients and their families are still waiting for treatment until now. The main reason for that might be the complex cellular function HTT that makes the determination of the pathologic mechanism difficult and the development of treatments even more challenging. Although a lot of different animal models have been generated until now, establishing a suitable model has still not been achieved yet. Due to its anatomy, physiology, and genetics, the minipig seems to be a suitable candidate for neurodegenerative disease models. Indeed, the existing Transgenic (Tg) Libechov minipig model manifests signs typical for HD in patients, but on the other hand significant inconsistencies have also been observed. The finding of malformation that partially shows the situation in human patients is true for both, the male reproductive tract as well as for the brain. The reason for this might be the fact the genetic...
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Oxidative stress in primary porcine fibroblasts expressing mutated huntingtin
Šmatlíková, Petra ; Askeland, G. ; Vaškovičová, Michaela ; Klíma, Jiří ; Motlík, Jan ; Eide, L. ; Ellederová, Zdeňka
Molecular events, such as protein aggregation, mitochondrial dysfunction, and transcriptional dysregulation have been linked to Huntington’s disease (HD) pathogenesis. Oxidative stress has been considered as one of the key players in disease progression. Though, it is still not clear whether oxidative stress causes HD, or if it is a consequence of other primary events.
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