BioProject

Fragile X syndrome (FXS) is a rare disease but is the most common form of inherited intellectual disability and a leading cause of autism. More...

Fragile X syndrome (FXS) is a rare disease but is the most common form of inherited intellectual disability and a leading cause of autism. FXS is due to the absence of the Fragile X Mental Retardation Protein (FMRP), an RNA-binding protein mainly involved in translational control. Even if this molecular defect is known, no specific therapy is available for FXS. The first alteration observed in the brain of FXS patients and of Fmr1 KO mice, model for FXS, is represented by an abnormal dendritic morphology that is associated with an altered synaptic plasticity. These findings led to numerous studies focused on mature neurons. However, recently, an increasing body of evidence is pointing out the importance of FMRP in the early steps of brain development. Thus, with the purpose to decipher the earliest molecular events leading to FXS we developed a stem-cell-based disease model by knocking-down the expression of Fmr1 in mouse embryonic stem (ES) cells. To gain insights in the pathways that are affected when FMRP is repressed, we performed a gene expression profile analysis comparing total RNA from shFmr1 and shControl ES cells using whole genome mouse microarrays. Transcripts were clustered according to their Gene Ontology classification using the DAVID software. Surprisingly, the most altered functional category was Nervous system development and function, highlighting the role of FMRP also during the earliest steps of neural development. Overall design: To study the precise role of FMRP in Embryonic stem (ES) cells, we used an RNAi-based loss-of-function strategy by transducing mouse ES cells with a lentivirus expressing GFP and a shRNA targeting the constitutive exon 1 of Fmr1 (shFmr1). A random shRNA (shCT) was used as a control sequence. Transduced cells were sorted by flow cytometry and established as non-clonal cell populations. RNA samples were harvested and profiling experiments were performed in “dye-balance” as indicated for each replicate. Less...