Modulation of associative human motor cortical plasticity by attention

The role of attention in generating motor memories remains controversial principally because it is difficult to separate the effects of attention from changes in kinematics of motor performance. We attempted to disentangle attention from performance effects by varying attention while plasticity was induced in human primary motor cortex by external stimulation in the absence of voluntary movement. A paired associative stimulation (PAS) protocol was employed consisting of repetitive application of single afferent electric stimuli, delivered to the right median nerve, paired with single-pulse transcranial magnetic stimulation (TMS) over the optimal site for activation of the right abductor pollicis brevis muscle (APB) to generate near-synchronous events in the left primary motor cortex. In experiment 1, the spatial location of attention was varied. PAS failed to induce plasticity when the subject's attention was directed to their left hand, away from the right target hand the cortical representation of which was being stimulated by PAS. In experiment 2, the grade of attention to the target hand was manipulated. PAS-induced plasticity was maximal when the subject viewed their target hand, and its magnitude was slightly reduced when the subject could only feel their hand. Conversely, plasticity was completely blocked when the subject's attention was diverted from the target hand by a competing cognitive task. A similar modulation by attention was observed for PAS-induced changes in the duration of the silent period evoked by TMS in voluntarily contracted muscle. Associative plasticity in the human motor cortex depends decisively on attention.     

From segment to somite: segmentation to epithelialization analyzed within quantitative frameworks.

One of the most visually striking patterns in the early developing embryo is somite segmentation. Somites form as repeated, periodic structures in pairs along nearly the entire caudal vertebrate axis. The morphological process involves short- and long-range signals that drive cell rearrangements and cell shaping to create discrete, epithelialized segments. Key to developing novel strategies to prevent somite birth defects that involve axial bone and skeletal muscle development is understanding how the molecular choreography is coordinated across multiple spatial scales and in a repeating temporal manner. Mathematical models have emerged as useful tools to integrate spatiotemporal data and simulate model mechanisms to provide unique insights into somite pattern formation. In this short review, we present two quantitative frameworks that address the morphogenesis from segment to somite and discuss recent data of segmentation and epithelialization.     

Peptide analysis,stability studies,and structural modeling explain contradictory peptide motifs and unique properties of the NOD mouse MHC class II molecule H2-A(g7)

The MHC class II molecule H2-A(g7) is the chief genetic determinant in insulin-dependent diabetes mellitus of the non-obese diabetic (NOD) mice. Poor peptide binding ability, as well as presentation of a unique subset of peptides by this molecule was suggested to promote autoimmunity in this strain. However, several laboratories have presented results in favor of an H2-A(g7) molecule that can avidly bind many different peptides. The crystal structures of H2-A(g7) in complex with two different peptides did not completely resolve this issue. To analyze the peptide binding capacity and the motif requirements of H2-A(g7), we eluted natural ligands from purified H2-A(g7) molecules isolated from the H2-A(g7)-transfected M12-C3 cells. A low peptide yield dominated by a few peptide ligands was found. Pool sequencing and alignment of individual ligands on the basis of molecular modeling revealed a peptide-binding motif with basic/aliphatic/small hydrophilic amino acids at relative position 1 (p1), aliphatic amino acids at p4, Ala at p6, and acidic amino acids and Ser/Gly at p9, as well as acidic residues at p10/11. Though weak, the binding of individual ligands, as well as the importance of an acidic C-terminal residue was confirmed by peptide binding studies to isolated H2-A(g7) molecules. Furthermore, the H2-A(g7) molecule incompletely dissociated into its constituent chains in SDS-electrophoresis under nonreducing conditions. This provides additional evidence of its weak affinity for peptides, which probably arises from the combination of beta56His/beta57Ser/beta78Ala and other unique H2-A(g7) residues in contact with the antigenic peptide. These results allow a better understanding of the role of this molecule in the development of autoimmunity and the identification of epitopes relevant to diabetes.     

Presynaptic short-term depression is maintained during regulation of transmitter release at a GABAergic synapse in rat hippocampus

To examine possible interactions between fast depression and modulation of inhibitory synaptic transmission in the hippocampus, we recorded from pairs of synaptically connected basket cells (BCs) and granule cells (GCs) in the dentate gyrus of rat brain slices at 34 °C. Multiple-pulse depression (MPD) was examined in trains of 5 or 10 inhibitory postsynaptic currents (IPSCs) evoked at frequencies of 10–00 Hz under several conditions that inhibit transmitter release: block of voltage-dependent Ca²⁺ channels by Cd²⁺ (10 μ m ), activation of γ-amino-butyric acid type B receptors (GABA_BRs) by baclofen (10 μ m ) and activation of muscarinic acetylcholine receptors (mAchRs) by carbachol (2 μ m ). All manipulations led to a substantial inhibition of synaptic transmission, reducing the amplitude of the first IPSC in the train (IPSC₁) by 72 %, 61 % and 29 %, respectively. However, MPD was largely preserved under these conditions (0.34 in control versus 0.31, 0.50 and 0.47 in the respective conditions at 50 Hz). Similarly, a theta burst stimulation (TBS) protocol reduced IPSC₁ by 54 %, but left MPD unchanged (0.40 in control and 0.39 during TBS). Analysis of both fractions of transmission failures and coefficients of variation (CV) of IPSC peak amplitudes suggested that MPD had a presynaptic expression site, independent of release probability. In conclusion, different types of presynaptic modulation of inhibitory synaptic transmission converge on a reduction of synaptic strength, while short-term dynamics are largely unchanged.     

Ectopic bone formation associated with mesenchymal stem cells in a resorbable calcium deficient hydroxyapatite carrier

Bone substitute materials can induce bone formation in combination with mesenchymal stem cells (MSC). The aim of the current study was to examine ectopic in vivo bone formation with and without MSC on a new resorbable ceramic, called calcium deficient hydroxyapatite (CDHA). Ceramic blocks characterized by a large surface (48 m2/g) were compared with beta-tricalcium phosphate (beta-TCP), hydroxyapatite (HA) ceramics (both ca. 0.5 m2/g surface) and demineralized bone matrix (DBM). Before implantation in the back of SCID mice carriers were freshly loaded with 2x10(5) expanded human MSC or loaded with cells and kept under osteogenic conditions for two weeks in vitro. Culture conditions were kept free of xenogenic supplements. Deposits of osteoid at the margins of ceramic pores occurred independent of osteogenic pre-induction, contained human cells, and appeared in 416 MSC/CDHA composites compared to 216 MSC/beta-TCP composites. ALP activity was significantly higher in samples with MSC versus empty controls (p<0.001). Furthermore, ALP was significantly (p<0.05) higher for all ceramics when compared to the DBM matrix. Compared to previous studies, overall bone formation appeared to be reduced possibly due to the strict human protocol. Ectopic bone formation in the novel biomaterial CDHA varied considerably with the cell pool and was at least equal to beta-TCP blocks.     

Pooled protein tagging,cellular imaging,and in situ sequencing for monitoring drug action in real time

The levels and subcellular localizations of proteins regulate critical aspects of many cellular processes and can become targets of therapeutic intervention. However, high-throughput methods for the discovery of proteins that change localization either by shuttling between compartments, by binding larger complexes, or by localizing to distinct membraneless organelles are not available. Here we describe a scalable strategy to characterize effects on protein localizations and levels in response to different perturbations. We use CRISPR-Cas9-based intron tagging to generate cell pools expressing hundreds of GFP-fusion proteins from their endogenous promoters and monitor localization changes by time-lapse microscopy followed by clone identification using in situ sequencing. We show that this strategy can characterize cellular responses to drug treatment and thus identify nonclassical effects such as modulation of protein–protein interactions, condensate formation, and chemical degradation.

Currently available mass-spectrometry methods (Rix and Superti-Furga 2009; Martinez Molina et al. 2013; Savitski et al. 2014; Huber et al. 2015; Drewes and Knapp 2018) for monitoring the effects of cellular perturbations on proteomes cannot be scaled efficiently to monitor time-dependent effects in high throughput. A different approach to study drug action is live-cell imaging of protein dynamics in cells expressing a protein of interest fused to a fluorescent tag. Traditionally, such reporter cells are generated either by overexpression to nonphysiologic levels, by oligonucleotide-directed homologous recombination in yeast, or by using CRISPR-Cas9 and homology-directed repair (HDR) to endogenously tag proteins in human cells (Ghaemmaghami et al. 2003; Huh et al. 2003; Chong et al. 2015; Leonetti et al. 2016). In addition to those targeted approaches, “gene trapping” or “CD-tagging” strategies, which rely on the random, viral integration of fluorescent tags as synthetic exons, have been used for analyzing dynamic changes in response to drugs (Jarvik et al. 1996; Morin et al. 2001; Cohen et al. 2008; Kang et al. 2016), but they are limited by integration site biases and require the isolation and characterization of clones before using them in an arrayed format. Recently, a strategy combining genome engineering and gene trapping using homology-independent CRISPR-Cas9 editing to place a fluorescent tag as a synthetic exon into introns of individual target genes has been described (Serebrenik et al. 2019). The strategy relies on a generic sgRNA excising a fluorescent tag flanked by splice acceptor and donor sites from a generic donor plasmid, which is coexpressed with a gene-specific intron-targeting sgRNA specifying the integration site. Here we show the scalability of that strategy to enable pooled protein tagging of more than 900 metabolic enzymes and epigenetic modifiers. Exposing the GFP-tagged cells to compounds allows us to monitor drug effects on the localization and levels of hundreds of proteins in real time in a pooled format, followed by identification of responding clones by in situ sequencing of the expressed intron-targeting sgRNA that corresponds to the tagged protein (Fig. 1A).Open in a separate windowFigure 1.Pooled GFP intron-tagging of metabolic enzymes. (A) Schematic outline of the approach. (B) Identification of targetable introns within metabolic genes. (C) FACS sorting of clones with successful GFP-tagging by signal enrichment over background mCherry intensity used as control for autofluorescence. (D) Representative image of sorted GFP-tagged cell pool. Scale bar, 25 µm. (E) Comparison of RNA-seq expression in HAP1 cells between genes for which GFP-tagged cells could be isolated and genes that were targeted in the sgRNA library but did not result in successful clone isolation.     

Hypergammaglobulinemia and autoantibody induction mechanisms in viral infections

Polyclonal hypergammaglobulinemia is a characteristic of chronic inflammatory conditions, including persisting viral infections and autoimmune diseases. Here we have studied hypergammaglobulinemia in mice infected with lymphocytic choriomeningitis virus (LCMV), which induces nonspecific immunoglobulins as a result of switching natural IgM specificities to IgG. The process is dependent on help from CD4+ T cells that specifically recognize LCMV peptides presented by B cells on major histocompatibility complex class II molecules. Thus, hypergammaglobulinemia may arise when specific helper T cells recognize B cells that have processed viral antigens irrespective of the B cell receptor specificity. This nonspecific B cell activation may contribute to antibody-mediated autoimmunity.