Faculty Bibliography

Epidemiological projections of the prevalence of Alzheimer's disease (AD) and related dementias, the rapidly expanding population over the age of 65, and the enormous societal consequence on health, economics, and community foretell of a looming global public health crisis. Currently available treatments for AD are symptomatic, with modest effect sizes and limited impact on longer term disease outcomes. There have been no newly approved pharmaceutical treatments in the last decade, despite enormous efforts to develop disease-modifying treatments directed at Alzheimer's-associated pathology. An unprecedented collaborative effort of government, regulators, industry, academia, and the community at-large is needed to address this crisis and to develop an actionable plan for rapid progress toward successfully developing effective treatments. Here, we map out a course of action in four key priority areas, including (1) addressing the fundamental mechanisms of disease, with the goal of developing a core set of research tools, a framework for data sharing, and creation of accessible validated and replicated disease models; (2) developing translational research that emphasizes rapid progress in disease model development and better translation from preclinical to clinical stages, deploying leading technologies to more accurately develop predictive models; (3) preventing AD through the development of robust methods and resources to advance trials and creating fundamental resources such as continuous adaptive trials, registries, data repositories, and instrument development; and (4) innovating public/private partnerships and global collaborations, with mechanisms to incentivize collaborations and investments, develop larger precompetitive spaces, and more rapid data sharing.

Kindlin-1 is an integrin tail binding protein that controls integrin activation. Mutations in the FERMT-1 gene, which encodes for Kindlin-1, lead to Kindler syndrome in man, which is characterized by skin blistering, premature skin aging and skin cancer of unknown etiology. Here we show that loss of Kindlin-1 in mouse keratinocytes recapitulates Kindler syndrome and also produces enlarged and hyperactive stem cell compartments, which lead to hyperthickened epidermis, ectopic hair follicle development and increased skin tumor susceptibility. Mechanistically, Kindlin-1 controls keratinocyte adhesion through beta1-class integrins and proliferation and differentiation of cutaneous epithelial stem cells by promoting alphavbeta6 integrin-mediated transforming growth factor-beta (TGF-beta) activation and inhibiting Wnt-beta-catenin signaling through integrin-independent regulation of Wnt ligand expression. Our findings assign Kindlin-1 the previously unknown and essential task of controlling cutaneous epithelial stem cell homeostasis by balancing TGF-beta-mediated growth-inhibitory signals and Wnt-beta-catenin-mediated growth-promoting signals.

Epithelial cells require apical-basal plasma membrane polarity to carry out crucial vectorial transport functions and cytoplasmic polarity to generate different cell progenies for tissue morphogenesis. The establishment and maintenance of a polarized epithelial cell with apical, basolateral and ciliary surface domains is guided by an epithelial polarity programme (EPP) that is controlled by a network of protein and lipid regulators. The EPP is organized in response to extracellular cues and is executed through the establishment of an apical-basal axis, intercellular junctions, epithelial-specific cytoskeletal rearrangements and a polarized trafficking machinery. Recent studies have provided insight into the interactions of the EPP with the polarized trafficking machinery and how these regulate epithelial polarization and depolarization.

The ability to reprogram differentiated cells into a pluripotent state has revealed that the differentiated state is plastic and reversible. It is evident, therefore, that mechanisms must be in place to maintain cells in a differentiated state. Transcription factors that specify neuronal characteristics have been well studied, but less is known about the mechanisms that prevent neurons from dedifferentiating to a multipotent, stem cell-like state. Here, we identify Lola as a transcription factor that is required to maintain neurons in a differentiated state. We show that Lola represses neural stem cell genes and cell-cycle genes in postmitotic neurons. In lola mutants, neurons dedifferentiate, turn on neural stem cell genes, and begin to divide, forming tumors. Thus, neurons rather than stem cells or intermediate progenitors are the tumor-initiating cells in lola mutants.

The PI 3-kinase (PI 3-K) signaling pathway is essential for Schwann cell myelination. Here we have characterized PI 3-K effectors activated during myelination by probing myelinating cultures and developing nerves with an antibody that recognizes phosphorylated substrates for this pathway. We identified a discrete number of phospho-proteins including the S6 ribosomal protein (S6rp), which is down-regulated at the onset of myelination, and N-myc downstream-regulated gene-1 (NDRG1), which is up-regulated strikingly with myelination. We show that type III Neuregulin1 on the axon is the primary activator of S6rp, an effector of mTORC1. In contrast, laminin-2 in the extracellular matrix (ECM), signaling through the alpha6beta4 integrin and Sgk1 (serum and glucocorticoid-induced kinase 1), drives phosphorylation of NDRG1 in the Cajal bands of the abaxonal compartment. Unexpectedly, mice deficient in alpha6beta4 integrin signaling or Sgk1 exhibit hypermyelination during development. These results identify functionally and spatially distinct PI 3-K pathways: an early, pro-myelinating pathway driven by axonal Neuregulin1 and a later-acting, laminin-integrin-dependent pathway that negatively regulates myelination.

Although much is known about protein folding in buffers, it remains unclear how the cellular protein homeostasis network functions as a system to partition client proteins between folded and functional, soluble and misfolded, and aggregated conformations. Herein, we develop small molecule folding probes that specifically react with the folded and functional fraction of the protein of interest, enabling fluorescence-based quantification of this fraction in cell lysate at a time point of interest. Importantly, these probes minimally perturb a protein's folding equilibria within cells during and after cell lysis, because sufficient cellular chaperone/chaperonin holdase activity is created by rapid ATP depletion during cell lysis. The folding probe strategy and the faithful quantification of a particular protein's functional fraction are exemplified with retroaldolase, a de novo designed enzyme, and transthyretin, a nonenzyme protein. Our findings challenge the often invoked assumption that the soluble fraction of a client protein is fully folded in the cell. Moreover, our results reveal that the partitioning of destabilized retroaldolase and transthyretin mutants between the aforementioned conformational states is strongly influenced by cytosolic proteostasis network perturbations. Overall, our results suggest that applying a chemical folding probe strategy to other client proteins offers opportunities to reveal how the proteostasis network functions as a system to regulate the folding and function of individual client proteins in vivo.