bioRxiv preprint doi: https://doi.org/10.1101/2019.12.12.874735; this version posted December 13, 2019. The copyright holder for this preprint (which was not certified by peer review) is the author/funder, who has granted bioRxiv a license to display the preprint in perpetuity. It is made available under aCC-BY-NC 4.0 International license. TDP-43 dysfunction restricts dendritic complexity by inhibiting CREB activation and altering gene expression Josiah J. Herzog1,2, Mugdha Deshpande1,2, Weijin Xu2,3, Reazur Rahman2,3, Hannah Suib2,3, Michael Rosbash2,3,4, Avital A. Rodal3,4,5, Suzanne Paradis4,6 1Equal Contribution 2Department of Biology, Brandeis University, Waltham, Massachusetts 02454 3Howard Hughes Medical Institute, Brandeis University, Waltham, MA 02454 4Volen Center for Complex Systems, Brandeis University, Waltham, MA 02454 5Rosenstiel Basic Medical Sciences Research Center, Brandeis University, Waltham, MA 02454 6Department of Biology, Brandeis University, Waltham, Massachusetts 02454;
[email protected] 1 bioRxiv preprint doi: https://doi.org/10.1101/2019.12.12.874735; this version posted December 13, 2019. The copyright holder for this preprint (which was not certified by peer review) is the author/funder, who has granted bioRxiv a license to display the preprint in perpetuity. It is made available under aCC-BY-NC 4.0 International license. Abstract Amyotrophic lateral sclerosis (ALS) and frontotemporal dementia (FTD) are two related neurodegenerative diseases that present with similar TDP-43 pathology in patient tissue. TDP-43 is an RNA-binding protein and forms aggregates in neurons of ALS and FTD patients as well as in a subset of patients diagnosed with other neurodegenerative diseases.