Requirement of Notch in adulthood for neurological function and longevity.

Although Notch proteins rely upon presenilins for activation and can modulate neuritic architecture, their role in aging adults and Alzheimer's disease is unknown. Here we examine Drosophila in which Notch function was selectively diminished in adulthood. An outcrossing strategy was employed to reduce the effect of recessive modifiers of lifespan, and a temperature-sensitive allele or inducible dominant-negative Notch transgenes were used to reduce Notch function. A progressive neurological syndrome with loss of flight and shortened lifespan was observed in adults with compromised Notch function. Notch protein persists in aging adult Drosophila brains. However, no evidence of neurodegeneration in the central nervous system was detected. We conclude that Notch activity is constitutively required in the adult fly for neurological function.

Autonomous and non-autonomous regulation of mammalian neurite development by Notch1 and Delta1.

BACKGROUND: On the basis of experiments suggesting that Notch and Delta have a role in axonal development in Drosophila neurons, we studied the ability of components of the Notch signaling pathway to modulate neurite formation in mammalian neuroblastoma cells in vitro. RESULTS: We observed that N2a neuroblastoma cells expressing an activated form of Notch, Notch1(IC), produced shorter neurites compared with controls, whereas N2a cell lines expressing a dominant-negative Notch1 or a dominant-negative Delta1 construct extended longer neurites with a greater number of primary neurites. We then compared the effects on neurites of contacting Delta1 on another cell and of overexpression of Delta1 in the neurite-extending cell itself. We found that N2a cells co-cultured with Delta1-expressing quail cells produced fewer and shorter neuritic processes. On the other hand, high levels of Delta1 expressed in the N2a cells themselves stimulated neurite extension, increased numbers of primary neurites and induced expression of Jagged1 and Notch1. CONCLUSIONS: These studies show that Notch signals can antagonize neurite outgrowth and that repressing endogenous Notch signals enhances neurite outgrowth in neuroblastoma cells. Notch signals therefore act as regulators of neuritic extension in neuroblastoma cells. The response of neuritic processes to Delta1 expressed in the neurite was opposite to that to Delta1 contacted on another cell, however. These results suggest a model in which developing neurons determine their extent of process outgrowth on the basis of the opposing influences on Notch signals of ligands contacted on another cell and ligands expressed in the same cell.

Differentially regulated epithelial expression of an Eph family tyrosine kinase (fHek2) during tracheal surface airway and submucosal gland development.

A ferret model was used to evaluate the potential role of an Eph family tyrosine kinase (fHek2) in tracheal development of surface airway epithelium and submucosal glands. A partial 2.6-kb cDNA fragment of fHek2 was isolated from a ferret tracheal/lung cDNA library. Sequence analysis demonstrated that this gene is the ortholog to the previously cloned human Hek2 gene. In situ hybridization analysis of fHek2 mRNA expression on ferret tracheal developmental time points revealed an expression pattern within a subset of surface airway epithelial cells which remained relatively constant throughout tracheal development (from -2 d in utero to adult). In contrast, developing tracheal submucosal glands at 3-day postnatal time points demonstrated little fHek2 mRNA expression. However, expression of fHek2 significantly increased more than 4-fold over the course of gland development to adulthood. These findings, which demonstrate a uniquely regulated pattern of fHek2 mRNA expression between surface airway epithelium and submucosal glands, have implications on regulatory processes which control differentiation and/or maturation of secretory structures in the lung. Such findings may be useful in further delineating the mechanisms which control cellular differentiation in the lung and how these processes are abnormally regulated in hypersecretory diseases such as chronic bronchitis, asthma, and cystic fibrosis.

Developmental expression patterns of CFTR in ferret tracheal surface airway and submucosal gland epithelia.

Submucosal glands are a major site of cystic fibrosis transmembrane conductance regulator (CFTR) expression in the human airway and may play an important role in the pathogenesis of cystic fibrosis. In humans, strategies for gene targeting to submucosal glands will likely be dependent on in utero gene transfer to submucosal gland progenitors because of the inaccessibility of these regions from the fully developed airway. However, little is known about the ontogeny of CFTR gene expression in developing submucosal glands and the potential functional role(s) CFTR may have during gland development. To this end, we describe the partial cloning of the ferret CFTR cDNA which was used for in situ mRNA localization studies in developing ferret trachea. The ferret animal model is attractive for studies pertaining to the development of tracheal submucosal glands because postnatal tracheal development in this species mirrors in utero gland development in humans. Sequence analysis of the first nucleotide binding domain (NBD1) from ferret CFTR revealed a striking homology to the human gene at both the DNA (94.4%) and amino acid level (97%). Interestingly, this high level of amino acid homology extends to a group of mammalian species (ferret, human, sheep, and bovine) which have similar lung morphologies with respect to the presence of surface airway goblet cells and submucosal glands. In contrast, mouse and rat airways which are quite divergent from those of ferret, human, sheep, and bovine species with respect to secretory cell types in the airway and abundance of submucosal glands, demonstrate significantly less homology (80%) with respect to CFTR amino acid sequence in the NBD1 domain. Given that traditional phylogenetic classification of these species does not mirror the evolutionary conservation of CFTR, such findings would suggest that certain aspects of lung morphology may be reflected in the evolutionary conservation of CFTR NBD1 amino acid sequences. CFTR in situ hybridization studies in ferret trachea demonstrate a developmental increase (3-4 fold) in CFTR mRNA expression within the surface airway epithelium between -2 day to 5 wk which mirrors an increase in ciliogenesis over this time frame. Additionally, all stages of gland development including the most primordial gland-forming buds could be seen to contain infrequent cells which highly express CFTR at a level that remained constant throughout development. Such findings suggest that differentiation of gland progenitor cells to CFTR-expressing submucosal gland cells occurs very early within submucosal gland development and morphogenesis.

Isolation of differentially expressed cDNAs during ferret tracheal development: application of differential display PCR.

The technique of differential display polymerase chain reaction (DD-PCR) was used to identify cDNA sequences, which are temporally expressed during ferret tracheal airway development. Such differentially expressed cDNAs may ultimately prove to be useful markers in elucidating mechanisms of epithelial differentiation and submucosal gland development in the airway. Using two sets of oligonucleotide primers 15 differentially amplified cDNAs were isolated by comparative reverse transcriptase (RT) PCR of 6-h and 3-day postnatal tracheal poly-A mRNA. In situ hybridization was used to assess the reliability of this method and confirm the differential mRNA expression patterns of cloned cDNAs. Results of in situ hybridization analysis demonstrated that 10 of the 15 cDNA sequences gave a temporally regulated pattern of expression, which was concordant with that of the differential display. Furthermore, sequence analysis of the 15 isolated cDNAs revealed that the majority of clones were amplified from two inverted decamer primers. These findings demonstrate the lack of poly-T priming in the differential display reaction, which suggests that this method may yield substantially more information regarding the coding sequence of cloned genes. In support of this observation, 6 of the 15 cDNA sequences contained one complete open reading frame. Although the majority of cDNAs demonstrated no homology to sequence data bases at the DNA or amino acid level, clone FT-4, which demonstrated a differential expression pattern limited to 3-day tracheal time points, was composed of a 10-amino acid repeat domain that was structurally similar to neuropeptide anthoRFamide and barley D hordein seed protein. A second interesting clone, FT-3, demonstrated an infrequent pattern of expression within a subset of epithelial cells limited to early developmental time points (6 h) and was dramatically reduced by 3 days postnatally. Several additional clones with no homologies to previously cloned genes demonstrated expression patterns that were also temporally regulated throughout tracheal development. Although the function of these temporally regulated genes has not been determined, these genes may ultimately prove to be useful markers of cellular differentiation during tracheal development.

The triple-helical region of human type XIX collagen consists of multiple collagenous subdomains and exhibits limited sequence homology to alpha 1(XVI).

We previously isolated a clone from a human rhabdomyosarcoma (RH) cDNA library coding for a collagen chain different from those constituting the 18 reported types (Myers, J. C., Sun, M. J., D'Ippolito, J. A., Jabs, E. W., Neilson, E. G., and Dion, A. S. (1993) Gene (Amst.) 123, 211-217). The sequence translated to a 186-amino acid noncollagenous region, a 524-residue three-subdomain collagenous region, and a presumed 8-amino acid COOH-terminal peptide. To further elucidate the primary structure of this collagen, we have now determined the sequence of additional cDNA clones. Overlapping 3' clones, found to diverge exactly where the noncollagenous 8-residue COOH sequence began, encode two additional collagenous subdomains of 168 and 70 residues and a 19-residue COOH-terminal peptide. Analysis of genomic DNA spanning the region in question revealed several 45- and 51-base pair exons linked by 4 introns totaling over 5 kilobases (kb). A 2-kb intron, absent from the clones coding for the extended collagenous region, was used in Northern blot hybridization to detect an apparently prevalent splicing intermediate 2 kb larger than the major 12.4-kb RH transcript. Therefore, the triple-helical region of this collagen chain is likely to be composed of 832 amino acids divided into five collagenous subdomains separated by 20-44 residue interruptions. Two interruptions are similar in sequence and position to those located in the type XVI chain. Furthermore, the arrangement of 2 cysteines near the COOH terminus and two imperfections in collagenous subdomain 1 are conserved in the related subclass composed of type IX, XII, XIV, and XVI collagens. However, in contrast to the COOH-terminal interchain bridging in this latter collagen group, molecular modeling strongly predicts that the cysteines in RH collagen participate in intrachain disulfide bonds. Taken together, the data clearly show that RH collagen does not represent another chain of one of the known collagen types. We propose that it be designated the alpha 1 chain of type XIX collagen.