THE ROLE OF AGRIN/LRP4/MUSK/DOK-7 SIGNALING IN DISASSEMBLY OF NEUROMUSCULAR SYNAPSES DURING AGING.

AGRIN/LRP4/MUSK/DOK-7 信号在衰老过程中神经肌肉突触分解中的作用。

• 批准号: 9145624
• 负责人: Steven Burden
• 金额: $ 42.38万
• 依托单位: NEW YORK UNIVERSITY SCHOOL OF MEDICINE
• 依托单位国家: 美国
• 财政年份: 2015
• 资助国家: 美国
• 起止时间: 2015-09-30 至 2020-05-31
• 项目状态: 已结题
• 来源: https://reporter.nih.gov/project-details/9145624
• 关键词: Adult; Aging; Agonist; Agrin; Antibodies; Attenuated; Autoantibodies; Axon; Basal lamina; Binding; Birth; C-terminal; Cleaved cell; Complex; Deterioration; Epitopes; Genetic; Health; Human; Laminin; Maintenance; Motor; Motor Neurons; Mus; Muscle; Muscle Fibers; Muscle denervation procedure; Mutate; Myasthenia Gravis; N-terminal; Nerve; Play; Postsynaptic Membrane; Reporting; Respiratory Diaphragm; Role; Signal Transduction; Site; Structure; Synapses; Synaptic Cleft; Synaptic Transmission; Testing; Therapeutic; Time; Tyrosine Phosphorylation; design; genome editing; in vivo; insight; nerve supply; neuromuscular; neuromuscular function; novel therapeutics; protein expression; research study; sarcopenia

 DESCRIPTION (provided by applicant): The formation and maintenance of neuromuscular synapses requires a mutual exchange of signals between motor neurons and muscle fibers, which is essential for the assembly and stability of a highly specialized postsynaptic membrane and a highly differentiated nerve terminal, critical for fast, robust and reliable synaptic transmission. Agrin, Lrp4, MuSK and Dok-7 are required both to form and to maintain neuromuscular synapses. As such, a reduction in their expression or activity may be responsible for the simplification and loss of nerve terminals and disassembly of the postsynaptic membrane during aging. One attractive hypothesis suggests that proteolytic cleavage of Agrin, releasing the C-terminal Lrp4-binding region of Agrin from the synaptic cleft, contributes to synaptic disassembly during aging. We will directly test this idea in the first aim.In the second aim, we will determine whether the expression of other key signaling components, Lrp4, MuSK and Dok-7, as well as the level of MuSK tyrosine phosphorylation, decreases during aging. In the third aim, we will determine whether boosting synaptic signaling with an agonist antibody to MuSK, which stimulates MuSK tyrosine phosphorylation independent of Agrin and Lrp4, slows or halts the deterioration of neuromuscular synapses during aging. The experiments described here should provide new insights into the mechanisms that control synaptic disassembly during aging and have the potential to identify a novel therapeutic strategy for preserving the structure and function of neuromuscular synapses and reducing sarcopenia.