A novel pathway for MuSK to induce key genes in neuromuscular synapse formation

At the developing neuromuscular junction the Agrin receptor MuSK is the central organizer of subsynaptic differentiation induced by Agrin from the nerve. The expression of musk itself is also regulated by the nerve, but the mechanisms involved are not known. Here, we analyzed the activation of a musk promoter reporter construct in muscle fibers in vivo and in cultured myotubes, using transfection of multiple combinations of expression vectors for potential signaling components. We show that neuronal Agrin by activating MuSK regulates the expression of musk via two pathways: the Agrin-induced assembly of muscle-derived neuregulin (NRG)-1/ErbB, the pathway thought to regulate acetylcholine receptor (AChR) expression at the synapse, and via a direct shunt involving Agrin-induced activation of Rac. Both pathways converge onto the same regulatory element in the musk promoter that is also thought to confer synapse-specific expression to AChR subunit genes. In this way, a positive feedback signaling loop is established that maintains musk expression at the synapse when impulse transmission becomes functional. The same pathways are used to regulate synaptic expression of AChRɛ . We propose that the novel pathway stabilizes the synapse early in development, whereas the NRG/ErbB pathway supports maintenance of the mature synapse

Regional IFNγ expression is insufficient for efficacious control of food-borne bacterial pathogens at the gut epithelial barrier

IFNγ is critical for host defence against various food-borne pathogens including Salmonella enterica and Listeria monocytogenes, the causative agents of salmonellosis and listeriosis, respectively. We investigated the impact of regional IFNγ expression at the intestinal epithelial barrier on host invasion by salmonellae and listeriae following oral challenge. Transgenic mice (IFNγ-gut), generated on an IFNγ knock-out (KO) background, selectively expressed IFNγ in the gut driven by the modified liver fatty acid-binding protein (Fabpl4× at −132) promoter. Infections with attenuated S. enterica Typhimurium or with L. monocytogenes did not differ significantly in IFNγ-KO, IFNγ-gut and wild-type mice. Further, Listeria-specific CD4+ and CD8+ T cells were not altered in IFNγ-gut mice. Thus, this model indicates that local IFNγ expression by non-immunological cells in the distal part of the small intestine, caecum and colon is insufficient for prevention of gut penetration by S. enterica Typhimurium and L. monocytogene

Identifying Activated T Cells in Reconstituted RAG Deficient Mice Using Retrovirally Transduced Pax5 Deficient Pro-B Cells

Various methods have been used to identify activated T cells such as binding of MHC tetramers and expression of cell surface markers in addition to cytokine-based assays. In contrast to these published methods, we here describe a strategy to identify T cells that respond to any antigen and track the fate of these activated T cells. We constructed a retroviral double-reporter construct with enhanced green fluorescence protein (EGFP) and a far-red fluorescent protein from Heteractis crispa (HcRed). LTR-driven EGFP expression was used to enrich and identify transduced cells, while HcRed expression is driven by the CD40Ligand (CD40L) promoter, which is inducible and enables the identification and cell fate tracing of T cells that have responded to infection/inflammation. Pax5 deficient pro-B cells that can give rise to different hematopoietic cells like T cells, were retrovirally transduced with this double-reporter cassette and were used to reconstitute the T cell pool in RAG1 deifcient mice that lack T and B cells. By using flow cytometry and histology, we identified activated T cells that had developed from Pax5 deficient pro-B cells and responded to infection with the bacterial pathogen Listeria monocytogenes. Microscopic examination of organ sections allowed visual identification of HcRed-expressing cells. To further characterize the immune response to a given stimuli, this strategy can be easily adapted to identify other cells of the hematopoietic system that respond to infection/inflammation. This can be achieved by using an inducible reporter, choosing the appropriate promoter, and reconstituting mice lacking cells of interest by injecting gene-modified Pax5 deficient pro-B cells

Neuregulin/ErbB regulate neuromuscular junction development by phosphorylation of α-dystrobrevin

Neuregulin/ErbB signaling maintains high efficacy of synaptic transmission by stabilizing the postsynaptic apparatus via phosphorylation of α-dystrobrevin1

Pax5^−/− cells reconstitutes mature T cells in RAG1^−/− mice.

<p>Flow cytometric analysis of cells isolated from (axial) lymph nodes from either RAG1^−/− mice, which received 5×10⁵ Pax5^−/− cells intravenously, 4 weeks earlier or from wild type C57Bl/6 mice.. Lymph node cells were stained for CD4, CD8 and/or TCRαβ or TCRγδ. These results demonstrate that the mature T cell pool in the reconstituted RAG1^−/− mice is comparable to that of wild type mice. This experiment was performed twice.</p

HcRed expression in reconstituted T-cell pool.

<p>(a) HcRed expression in cells of a spleen section from a mouse subjected to infection with <i>Listeria monocytogenes</i> for 2 days. (b–d) Detailed view of the boxed section. (b) HcRed expression, (c) combined EGFP and HcRed expression and (d) EGFP expression only. This experiment was performed twice.</p

A Novel Role for Embigin to Promote Sprouting of Motor Nerve Terminals at the Neuromuscular Junction*S⃞

Adult skeletal muscle accepts ectopic innervation by foreign motor axons only after section of its own nerve, suggesting that the formation of new neuromuscular junctions is promoted by muscle denervation. With the aim to identify new proteins involved in neuromuscular junction formation we performed an mRNA differential display on innervated versus denervated adult rat muscles. We identified transcripts encoding embigin, a transmembrane protein of the immunoglobulin superfamily (IgSF) class of cell adhesion molecules to be strongly regulated by the state of innervation. In innervated muscle it is preferentially localized to neuromuscular junctions. Forced overexpression in innervated muscle of a full-length embigin transgene, but not of an embigin fragment lacking the intracellular domain, promotes nerve terminal sprouting and the formation of additional acetylcholine receptor clusters at synaptic sites without affecting terminal Schwann cell number or morphology, and it delays the retraction of terminal sprouts following re-innervation of denervated endplates. Conversely, knockdown of embigin by RNA interference in wild-type muscle accelerates terminal sprout retraction, both by itself and synergistically with deletion of neural cell adhesion molecule. These findings indicate that embigin enhances neural cell adhesion molecule-dependent neuromuscular adhesion and thereby modulates neuromuscular junction formation and plasticity