Early induction of the type I interferon response in neurological forms of Gaucher disease

Neuroinflammation is a key phenomenon in the pathogenesis of many neurodegenerative diseases. Understanding the mechanisms by which brain inflammation is engaged and delineating the key players in the immune response and their contribution to brain pathology is of great importance for the identification of novel therapeutic targets for these devastating diseases. Gaucher disease, the most common lysosomal storage disease, is caused by mutations in the GBA1 gene and is a significant risk factor for Parkinson?s disease; in some forms of Gaucher disease, neuroinflammation is observed. An unbiased gene profile analysis was performed on a severely affected brain area of a neurological form of a Gaucher disease mouse at a pre-symptomatic stage; the mouse used for this study, the Gbaflox/flox; nestin-Cre mouse, was engineered such that GBA1 deficiency is restricted to cells of neuronal lineage, i.e., neurons and macroglia. The 10 most up-regulated genes in the ventral posteromedial/posterolateral region of the thalamus were inflammatory genes, with the gene expression signature significantly enriched in interferon signaling genes. Our results imply that the type I interferon response is involved in the development of nGD pathology, and support the notion that interferon signaling pathways play a vital role in the sterile inflammation that often occurs during chronic neurodegenerative diseases in which neuroinflammation is present.

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Vitner EB, Farfel-Becker T, Ferreira NS, Leshkowitz D, Sharma P, Lang KS, Futerman AH