Mutant Gene Identification in the Dystonic Rat

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DESCRIPTION (provided by applicant): Dystonia is a syndrome of sustained muscle contractions, frequently causing twisting and repetitive movements, or abnormal postures. Dystonia is a relatively common neurological disease. For example, dystonia is almost ten-fold more common that Huntington's disease. There are no definitive cures for dystonia and treatments are expensive and often ineffective. Over twelve chromosomal loci associated with a dystonia phenotype in humans have been described to date. However, only three genes with a clear causal relationship to a predominantly dystonic phenotype have been cloned. Identifying other defective genes in either humans or animal models should provide critical insights into the extremely complex molecular and neural network pathophysiology of dystonia. In addition, any effort to understand dystonia will likely contribute in important ways to our understanding of motor systems and neuronal plasticity. The genetically dystonic (dt) rat, an autosomal recessive mutant discovered in the Sprague-Dawley (SD) strain, exhibits a movement disorder that closely resembles the generalized dystonia seen in humans. Dystonic rats demonstrate twisting movements and abnormal postures by Postnatal Day 12. The mutation is fully penetrant. Even with supportive measures, dt rats die before 40 days of age. However, cerebellectomy can eliminate dystonia in the dt rat, extend its life into adulthood, and enable it to bear and rear offspring. Behavioral, biochemical, and electrophysiological studies indicate that olivocerebellar pathway dysfunction is critical to the dt rat motor syndrome. A systematic approach to finding the mutant gene associated with the dt rat phenotype was begun by crossing homozygote male dt rats to females of an inbred strain. The heterozygote first-generation offspring were crossbred to produce second-generation offspring. Rats were genotyped using a set of markers spaced across the rat genome and the responsible gene has been narrowed down to a region of less than 1 cM. After cloning, the temporal and spatial expression of this gene's transcription product will be characterized in both dt rats and their normal littermates. Patients with dystonia will be screened for mutations of the homologous human gene: These proposed studies will likely increase our understanding of both dystonia and olivocerebellar motor systems.