Expression and neurobehavioral analyses in prosaposin deficient mice: Molecular alterations precede neuronal deficits

Prosaposin encodes, in tandem, four small acidic activator proteins (saposins) with specificities for glycosphingolipids hydrolases in lysosomes. To explore the molecular mechanism(s) of disease progression, temporal transcriptome microarray analyses of cerebrum and cerebellum tissues were conducted using mRNA from three prosaposin deficiency mouse models: PS-NA (hypomorphic prosaposin deficiency), PS-/- (prosaposin null) and 4L/PS-NA (a V394L/V394L glucocerebrosidase mutation and PS-NA) mice. Our results indicate that regionally specific gene expression abnormalities preceded the histological and behavioral changes and CEBPD is a candidate regulator of brain disease in prosaposin deficiency. The alterations of gene expression are detected at birth and are more profound in cerebellum than cerebrum.

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Sun Y, Jia L, Williams MT, Zamzow M, Ran H, Quinn B, Aronow BJ, Vorhees CV, Witte DP, Grabowski GA