We are looking into the role of oxidative DNA damage as a trigger to diseases like ataxia and neurodegeneration. We examine the roles of the disease proteins (ataxin-1, ataxin-7, etc,) and genes which modify or change disease that are involved with DNA damage repair.
Why do you do this research?
We are looking at what triggers the very first steps of disease. If we can understand this, we can design a treatment to stop it from happening in the first place.
Group picture of the Truant Laboratory celebrating International Ataxia Awareness Day 2019.
Fun Lab Fact
All our fridges in the laboratory are named after Game of Thrones characters! (We have several proud nerds in the lab)
We have an open lab notebook blog where our post-doctoral fellow Dr. Tam Maiuri post updates on her experiments in real-time! We plan to launch an ataxia open notebook in Winter 2021.
DNA repair is an important topic when talking about of neurodegenerative disorders. The amount of biochemical stress the brain experiences increases naturally as we age. Some connections have been made between the amount of stresses on the brain and the age people develop neurodegenerative disorders.
Many of these natural stresses can damage DNA. For this reason, many researchers are trying to find ways of helping or fixing DNA repair. Chemicals that effect DNA repair could be used as new drugs. Here, we will focus on just one part of the DNA damage response that has been a great success in cancer drug discovery.
PAR is like a net that pulls in proteins that repair DNA
Poly-ADP-ribose, also called PAR, are long molecules in the cell. They are made of of the same building blocks cells use to store enegry. PARylation is when these long chains of PAR are made and attached to different parts of the cell. This happens in response to many different types of stress. For example, a stress could be if a cell’s DNA is damaged or it is infected with a virus.
When DNA damage happens, PAR molecules are attached on the surface of proteins and can act as a basket to trap other proteins. PAR is made and woven together by PAR polymerase proteins (called PARPs). PARPs add PAR chains all around a site of damage to let other parts of the cell know that damage has happened. This attracts DNA repair proteins to DNA damage by binding to PAR and performing their role to fix the damage.
PAR can act like a fishing net that “catches” and pulls in proteins to help fix DNA damage. Image of a fishing net by Nikodem Nijaki on Wikimedia.
To much PAR causes cells to run out of energy
Even though PAR does a good job of signalling that DNA damage has happened, it takes a lot of energy to make. If the damage can not be fixed, the cell will keep trying to make PAR until runs out of energy. This can lead to PAR molecules causing cell death. This effect of too much PAR can be seen in multiple types of neurodegenerative diseases.
A type of cerebellar ataxia called AOA-XRCC1 is known for having higher levels of PAR due to DNA damage. When researchers reduced the amount of PAR in a mouse model of AOA-XRCC1, the mouse had fewer ataxia symptoms and lost fewer neurons. This type of ataxia is caused by a mutation in a protein called XRCC1, which normally helps fix DNA and binds to PAR chains. But in the disease, the XRCC1 gets stuck at DNA along with the long chains of PAR.
These findings may be applicable to other types of ataxia and neurodegenerative disorders because of their link to higher levels of DNA damage. A lot more work to be done on PARylation and its role in neurodegeneration. But a lot of research has been done on PAR in cancer. Many drugs have been FDA approved for cancer patients as safe and effective. Cancer and ataxia are very different diseases. But all the work that has previously been done has laid the groundwork for new research in neurodegeneration.
As we go through life, our DNA undergoes a lot of stress, which can ultimately lead to DNA damage. The different stressors that can cause DNA damage are environmental factors such as UV light, radiation, and certain toxins. Additionally, DNA damage can be caused by metabolic processes that occur naturally in our body. DNA damage can manifest in multiple forms. One form of DNA damage are DNA breaks, which arise when either one or both of the DNA strands break, creating a physical separation between the DNA bases. Every day, each cell will experience about 50,000 single-stranded breaks, and every cell division will lead to about ten double-stranded breaks.
An artist’s drawing of a double-stranded DNA break. Image part of the public domain.
How is the DNA repaired?
Thankfully, although DNA damage is a common occurrence in our cells, there are many ways our body can repair the damage. The type of repair is thereby determined by the type of DNA damage and the growth stage of the cell. A commonly used repair pathway to fix double-strand breaks is non-homologous end joining (NHEJ).
How NHEJ can repair DNA. Damage to DNA can cause Single Strand (SS) or Double Strand (DS) breaks. Non-Homologous End Joining can repair double stranded break, but also causes small deletions of DNA. Image by Eder Xhako, Created with BioRender
NHEJ occurs mainly when the cell is actively growing. Double-stranded breaks are very harmful to the cell. If left unrepaired, the break can make the whole DNA chromosome unstable, and result in death of the cell. In order to minimize the damage caused by the breaks, NHEJ is a very fast, although often imprecise, method of DNA repair. When DNA undergoes a double-stranded break, NHEJ will act like glue and stick the two broken DNA ends together. Depending on where the break occurred and how much damage happened, the repair can then either lead to a complete repair or the loss of some DNA base pairs at the junctions resulting in permanent deletions. It is more common for NHEJ to lead to small deletions rather than a precise repair. Depending on the location of the deletion, it can have either no consequence or be potentially damaging to a gene
How do scientists use NHEJ to their advantage?
Outside of the context of natural DNA damage, scientists have learned how to utilize the naturally occurring NHEJ repair pathway to inactivate genes of interest. As such, scientists have developed methods, such as the CRISPR-Cas9 system, to artificially introduce double-stranded breaks in essential and functional parts of the gene. The double-strand break then causes the cell to repair the double-stranded break using NHEJ. As NHEJ often leads to small deletions, which will damage the essential part of the gene, the gene will often be rendered non-functional. In this way, scientists can study what happens in the absence of the gene.
If you would like to learn more about Non-Homologous End Joining, take a look at this video by Oxford University Press.
Snapshot written by Eder Xhako and edited by Larissa Nitschke
Écrit par Dr. Ambika Tewari, Edité par Dr. Mónica Bañez-Coronel, Traduction française par: L’Association Alatax, Publication initiale: 22 novembre 2019
Des mutations dans la protéine huntingtine altèrent la réparation de l’ADN, causant des dommages importants à l’ADN et une expression génétique modifiée.
Notre génome regroupe l’intégralité de notre matériel génétique, qui contient les instructions pour fabriquer les protéines essentielles à tous les processus de l’organisme. Chaque cellule de notre corps, des cellules de la peau qui constituent une barrière de protection essentielle, des cellules immunitaires qui nous protègent des espèces envahissantes et des cellules du cerveau qui nous permettent de percevoir et de communiquer avec le monde contient du matériel génétique. Au début du développement de chaque espèce de mammifère, il existe une prolifération massive de cellules qui permet le développement d’un embryon au stade une cellule à un corps fonctionnel contenant des trillions de cellules. Pour que ce processus se déroule de manière efficace et fiable, les instructions contenues dans notre matériel génétique doivent être transmises avec précision pendant la division cellulaire et son intégrité maintenue pendant toute la durée de vie de la cellule afin de garantir son bon fonctionnement.
De nombreux obstacles entravent la séquence complexe et hautement orchestrée d’événements au cours du développement et du vieillissement, provoquant des altérations pouvant entraîner un dysfonctionnement cellulaire et une maladie. Les sources de dommages à l’ADN internes et externes bombardent constamment le génome. Les rayonnements ultraviolets et l’exposition à des agents chimiques sont des exemples de sources externes, tandis que les sources internes incluent les processus cellulaires pouvant découler, par exemple, des sous-produits réactifs du métabolisme.
Heureusement, la nature a mis au point un groupe spécial de protéines, appelées protéines de réparation et de réparation de l’ADN, qui permettent aux détecteurs de détecter les messages erronés. Ces protéines spécialisées garantissent que les dommages aux molécules d’ADN qui codent nos informations génétiques ne sont pas transmis à la nouvelle génération de cellules lors de la division cellulaire ou lors de l’expression de nos gènes, protégeant ainsi notre génome. De nombreux troubles génétiques sont causés par des mutations du matériel génétique. Cela conduit à un ARN ou une protéine dysfonctionnel avec peu ou pas de fonction (perte de fonction) ou à un ARN ou une protéine avec une fonction entièrement nouvelle (gain de fonction). Étant donné que les protéines de réparation de l’ADN jouent un rôle crucial dans l’identification et le ciblage des erreurs commises dans le message, il va de soi que toute altération du processus de réparation de l’ADN pourrait conduire à une maladie. Dans cette étude, Rui Gao et ses collègues, par le biais d’une vaste collaboration, ont cherché à comprendre le lien qui existe entre la réparation de l’ADN modifiée et la maladie de Huntington.
Written by Dr. Ambika Tewari Edited by Dr. Mónica Bañez-Coronel
Mutations in the Huntingtin protein impair DNA repair causing significant DNA damage and altered gene expression
Our genome houses the entirety of our genetic material which contains the instructions for making the proteins that are essential for all processes in the body. Each cell within our body, from skin cells that provide a crucial protective barrier, immune cells that protect us from invading species and brain cells that allow us to perceive and communicate with the world contains genetic material. During early development in every mammalian species, there is a massive proliferation of cells that allows the development from a one-cell stage embryo to a functional body containing trillions of cells. For this process to occur efficiently and reliably, the instructions contained in our genetic material need to be precisely transmitted during cell division and its integrity maintained during the cell’s life-span to guarantee its proper functioning.
There are many obstacles that hamper the intricate and highly orchestrated sequence of events during development and aging, causing alterations that can lead to cell dysfunction and disease. Internal and external sources of DNA damage constantly bombard the genome. Examples of external sources include ultraviolet radiation and exposure to chemical agents, while internal sources include cell processes that can arise, for example, from the reactive byproducts of metabolism. Fortunately, nature has evolved a special group of proteins known as DNA damage and repair proteins that act as surveyors to detect erroneous messages. These specialized proteins ensure that damage to the DNA molecules that encode our genetic information is not passed to the new generation of cells during cell division or during the expression of our genes, ultimately protecting our genome. Many genetic disorders are caused by mutations in the genetic material. This leads to a dysfunctional RNA or protein with little or no function (loss of function) or an RNA or protein with an entirely new function (gain of function). Since DNA repair proteins play a crucial role in identifying and targeting mistakes made in the message, it stands to reason that impairment in the DNA repair process might lead to disease. In this study, Rui Gao and colleagues through an extensive collaboration sought to understand the connection between altered DNA repair and Huntington’s disease.
