RESEARCH ARTICLE Inhibiting the integrated stress response pathway prevents aberrant chondrocyte differentiation thereby alleviating chondrodysplasia Cheng Wang1†, Zhijia Tan1†, Ben Niu1, Kwok Yeung Tsang1, Andrew Tai1, Wilson C W Chan1, Rebecca L K Lo1, Keith K H Leung1, Nelson W F Dung1, Nobuyuki Itoh2, Michael Q Zhang3,4, Danny Chan1, Kathryn Song Eng Cheah1* 1School of Biomedical Sciences, University of Hong Kong, Hong Kong, China; 2Graduate School of Pharmaceutical Sciences, University of Kyoto, Kyoto, Japan; 3Department of Biological Sciences, Center for Systems Biology, The University of Texas at Dallas, Richardson, United States; 4MOE Key Laboratory of Bioinformatics, Center for Synthetic and Systems Biology, Tsinghua University, Beijing, China Abstract The integrated stress response (ISR) is activated by diverse forms of cellular stress, including endoplasmic reticulum (ER) stress, and is associated with diseases. However, the molecular mechanism(s) whereby the ISR impacts on differentiation is incompletely understood. Here, we exploited a mouse model of Metaphyseal Chondrodysplasia type Schmid (MCDS) to provide insight into the impact of the ISR on cell fate. We show the protein kinase RNA-like ER kinase (PERK) pathway that mediates preferential synthesis of ATF4 and CHOP, dominates in causing dysplasia by reverting chondrocyte differentiation via ATF4-directed transactivation of Sox9. Chondrocyte survival is enabled, cell autonomously, by CHOP and dual CHOP-ATF4 *For correspondence: transactivation of Fgf21. Treatment of mutant mice with a chemical inhibitor of PERK signaling
[email protected] prevents the differentiation defects and ameliorates chondrodysplasia. By preventing aberrant †These authors contributed differentiation, titrated inhibition of the ISR emerges as a rationale therapeutic strategy for stress- equally to this work induced skeletal disorders.