Dysregulation of mTOR signaling mediates common neurite and migration defects in both idiopathic and 16p11.2 deletion autism neural precursor cells

Abstract

Autism spectrum disorder (ASD) is defined by common behavioral characteristics, raising the possibility of shared pathogenic mechanisms. Yet, vast clinical and etiological heterogeneity suggests personalized phenotypes. Surprisingly, our iPSC studies find that six individuals from two distinct ASD-subtypes, idiopathic and 16p11.2 deletion, have common reductions in neural precursor cell (NPC) neurite outgrowth and migration even though whole genome sequencing demonstrates no genetic overlap between the datasets. To identify signaling differences that may contribute to these developmental defects, an unbiased phospho-(p)-proteome screen was performed. Surprisingly despite the genetic heterogeneity, hundreds of shared p-peptides were identified between autism subtypes including the mTOR pathway. mTOR signaling alterations were confirmed in all NPCs across both ASD-subtypes, and mTOR modulation rescued ASD phenotypes and reproduced autism NPC associated phenotypes in control NPCs. Thus, our studies demonstrate that genetically distinct ASD subtypes have common defects in neurite outgrowth and migration which are driven by the shared pathogenic mechanism of mTOR signaling dysregulation.

Data availability

Genome Wide Sequencing data has been deposited into the NIH NDA. All excel sheets for graphs in the manuscript as well as unedited western blot films (labeled and unlabeled) will be deposited in Dryad: DOI: 10.5061/dryad.6wwpzgn5v

The following data sets were generated

Article and author information

Author details

  1. Smrithi Prem

    Department of Neuroscience and Cell Biology, Rutgers, The State University of New Jersey, Piscataway, United States
    For correspondence
    prems@pennmedicine.upenn.edu
    Competing interests
    The authors declare that no competing interests exist.
    ORCID icon "This ORCID iD identifies the author of this article:" 0000-0001-6961-7904
  2. Bharati Dev

    Department of Neuroscience and Cell Biology, Rutgers, The State University of New Jersey, Piscataway, United States
    Competing interests
    The authors declare that no competing interests exist.
  3. Cynthia Peng

    Department of Neuroscience and Cell Biology, Rutgers, The State University of New Jersey, Piscataway, United States
    Competing interests
    The authors declare that no competing interests exist.
  4. Monal Mehta

    Graduate Program in Neuroscience, Rutgers, The State University of New Jersey, Piscataway, United States
    Competing interests
    The authors declare that no competing interests exist.
  5. Rohan Alibutud

    Department of Genetics, Rutgers, The State University of New Jersey, Piscataway, United States
    Competing interests
    The authors declare that no competing interests exist.
  6. Robert J Connacher

    Department of Neuroscience and Cell Biology, Rutgers, The State University of New Jersey, Piscataway, United States
    Competing interests
    The authors declare that no competing interests exist.
  7. Madeline St Thomas

    Department of Neuroscience and Cell Biology, Rutgers, The State University of New Jersey, Piscataway, United States
    Competing interests
    The authors declare that no competing interests exist.
  8. Xiaofeng Zhou

    Department of Neuroscience and Cell Biology, Rutgers, The State University of New Jersey, Piscataway, United States
    Competing interests
    The authors declare that no competing interests exist.
  9. Paul Matteson

    Department of Neuroscience and Cell Biology, Rutgers, The State University of New Jersey, Piscataway, United States
    Competing interests
    The authors declare that no competing interests exist.
  10. Jinchuan Xing

    Department of Genetics, Rutgers, The State University of New Jersey, Piscataway, United States
    Competing interests
    The authors declare that no competing interests exist.
    ORCID icon "This ORCID iD identifies the author of this article:" 0000-0001-6469-8733
  11. James H Millonig

    Department of Neuroscience and Cell Biology, Rutgers, The State University of New Jersey, Piscataway, United States
    For correspondence
    millonig@cabm.rutgers.edu
    Competing interests
    The authors declare that no competing interests exist.
  12. Emanuel DiCicco-Bloom

    Department of Neuroscience and Cell Biology, Rutgers, The State University of New Jersey, Piscataway, United States
    For correspondence
    diccem@rwjms.rutgers.edu
    Competing interests
    The authors declare that no competing interests exist.
    ORCID icon "This ORCID iD identifies the author of this article:" 0000-0001-5091-1046

Funding

NIH R25 (5R25MH119043-05)

  • Smrithi Prem

Rutgers School of Graduate Studies (Thesis Finishing Grant)

  • Smrithi Prem

New Jersey Governer's Council For Medical Resear (CAUT13APS010,CAUT14APL031,CAUT15APL041,CAUT19APL014)

  • James H Millonig
  • Emanuel DiCicco-Bloom

Nancy Lurie Marks Family Foundation

  • James H Millonig
  • Emanuel DiCicco-Bloom

NJ Health Foundation (PC 63-19)

  • James H Millonig

Mindworks Charitable Lead Trust

  • Emanuel DiCicco-Bloom

Jewish Community Foundation o Greater MetroWest

  • Emanuel DiCicco-Bloom

Autism Science Foundation (Summer Undergraduate Research Grant)

  • Cynthia Peng

New Jersey Governor's Council for Medical Research and Treatment of Autism (CAUT19APL028)

  • Smrithi Prem
  • Jinchuan Xing
  • Emanuel DiCicco-Bloom

The funders had no role in study design, data collection and interpretation, or the decision to submit the work for publication.

Reviewing Editor

  1. Genevieve Konopka, University of Texas Southwestern Medical Center, United States

Version history

  1. Received: August 18, 2022
  2. Preprint posted: September 20, 2022 (view preprint)
  3. Accepted: March 4, 2024
  4. Accepted Manuscript published: March 25, 2024 (version 1)
  5. Version of Record published: April 9, 2024 (version 2)

Copyright

© 2024, Prem et al.

This article is distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License permitting unrestricted use and redistribution provided that the original author and source are credited.

Metrics

  • 1,088
    views
  • 146
    downloads
  • 0
    citations

Views, downloads and citations are aggregated across all versions of this paper published by eLife.

Download links

A two-part list of links to download the article, or parts of the article, in various formats.

Downloads (link to download the article as PDF)

Open citations (links to open the citations from this article in various online reference manager services)

Cite this article (links to download the citations from this article in formats compatible with various reference manager tools)

  1. Smrithi Prem
  2. Bharati Dev
  3. Cynthia Peng
  4. Monal Mehta
  5. Rohan Alibutud
  6. Robert J Connacher
  7. Madeline St Thomas
  8. Xiaofeng Zhou
  9. Paul Matteson
  10. Jinchuan Xing
  11. James H Millonig
  12. Emanuel DiCicco-Bloom
(2024)
Dysregulation of mTOR signaling mediates common neurite and migration defects in both idiopathic and 16p11.2 deletion autism neural precursor cells
eLife 13:e82809.
https://doi.org/10.7554/eLife.82809

Share this article

https://doi.org/10.7554/eLife.82809

Further reading

    1. Developmental Biology
    Rieko Asai, Vivek N Prakash ... Takashi Mikawa
    Research Article

    Large-scale cell flow characterizes gastrulation in animal development. In amniote gastrulation, particularly in avian gastrula, a bilateral vortex-like counter-rotating cell flow, called ‘polonaise movements’, appears along the midline. Here, through experimental manipulations, we addressed relationships between the polonaise movements and morphogenesis of the primitive streak, the earliest midline structure in amniotes. Suppression of the Wnt/planar cell polarity (PCP) signaling pathway maintains the polonaise movements along a deformed primitive streak. Mitotic arrest leads to diminished extension and development of the primitive streak and maintains the early phase of the polonaise movements. Ectopically induced Vg1, an axis-inducing morphogen, generates the polonaise movements, aligned to the induced midline, but disturbs the stereotypical cell flow pattern at the authentic midline. Despite the altered cell flow, induction and extension of the primitive streak are preserved along both authentic and induced midlines. Finally, we show that ectopic axis-inducing morphogen, Vg1, is capable of initiating the polonaise movements without concomitant PS extension under mitotic arrest conditions. These results are consistent with a model wherein primitive streak morphogenesis is required for the maintenance of the polonaise movements, but the polonaise movements are not necessarily responsible for primitive streak morphogenesis. Our data describe a previously undefined relationship between the large-scale cell flow and midline morphogenesis in gastrulation.

    1. Developmental Biology
    2. Physics of Living Systems
    Raphaël Clément
    Insight

    Geometric criteria can be used to assess whether cell intercalation is active or passive during the convergent extension of tissue.