Amyotrophic lateral sclerosis (ALS) is an adult-onset neurodegenerative disorder characterized by progressive degeneration of upper and lower motor neurons in the brain and spinal cord, leading to progressive paralysis and ultimately death within 3 to 5 years of symptom onset.[1-3] One of the pathological hallmarks of ALS is the presence of transactivation response (TAR) DNA-binding protein (TDP-43) in ubiquitinated neuronal cytoplasmic inclusions in lower motor neurons.[4-8] Recent identifications of mutations selleck chemical in two genes encoding TDP-43 and fused in sarcoma (FUS), both of which are multifunctional DNA/RNA-binding proteins that are involved

in transcriptional regulation, have opened a new era in ALS research.[9-12] Although the pathomechanisms of cytoplasmic mislocalization and inclusion formation of TDP-43 and FUS, and motor neuron death in ALS are largely unknown, impairment of protein degradation machineries that include proteasome, autophagy and endosome systems

has also been suggested in neurodegenerative disorders that include ALS.[13-15] For instance, deficiency of 26S proteasome in mouse brain neurons by conditional knockout of a proteasome component PSMC1 (Rpt2/S4) causes neuronal ITF2357 in vivo aggregate formation and neurodegeneration.[16] Depletion of autophagosome components ATG5 and ATG7 also causes aggregate formation and neuronal cell death.[17, 18] Depletion of endosomal sorting complexes required for transport (ESCRT) components TSG101 (VPS23) and VPS24 (CHMP3) by short interfering RNA (siRNA) induces cytoplasmic TDP43-positive aggregate formation.[19] In the present study we produced recombinant adenovirus vectors encoding wild type and mutant TDP-43 or FUS, and those encoding short hairpin RNAs (shRNAs) for proteasome (PSMC1), autophagy (ATG5) and endosome (VPS24) systems to investigate whether the coupled gene transductions in rodent motoneurons by these adenoviruses elicit ALS pathology in vitro and in vivo. For the construction of adenoviruses encoding DsRed-tagged human TDP-43 and FUS, the full length and

C-terminal fragment (CTF; 208–414 a.a.)[20] TDP-43 (GenBank accession number NM_007375), and the full-length FUS (NM_004960) cDNAs obtained from HEK 293 cells by RT-PCR were cloned into pDsRed-Monomer-C1 plasmid Cyclic nucleotide phosphodiesterase vector at the C-terminus (Clontech, Palo Alto, CA, USA). Point mutations of TDP-43 (G294A:g881c, G298S:g892a, A315T:g1077a, Q343R:a1028g) were created by QuikChange II Site-Directed Mutagenesis Kit (Agilent Technologies, Santa Clara, CA, USA). C-terminal point mutations of FUS (R521C:c1561t, R521G:c1561g, R522G:a1564g, P525L:c1574t) were introduced through conventional PCR primers using wild-type FUS as a template. The resulting wild-type and mutant DsRed-TDP43 and DsRed-FUS fragments were subsequently cloned into Swa I cloning site of cassette cosmids pAxCAwtit2 and pAxCALNLwtit2 (TaKaRa, Osaka, Japan), respectively.