Hindawi International Journal of Genomics Volume 2018, Article ID 5383517, 6 pages https://doi.org/10.1155/2018/5383517 Research Article Cerebellar lncRNA Expression Profile Analysis of SCA3/MJD Mice 1,2 1 1 1 1 1 Zhe Long, Tianjiao Li, Zhao Chen, Yun Peng, Chunrong Wang, Xiaocan Hou, 1 1 1 1 1 1 3 Hongyu Yuan, Puzhi Wang, Yue Xie, Lang He, Xin Zhou, Huirong Peng, Rong Qiu, 4 1,4,5,6,7,8,9 1,4,6,10 Kun Xia, Beisha Tang , and Hong Jiang 1Department of Neurology, Xiangya Hospital, Central South University, Changsha, Hunan 410008, China 2Sydney Medical School and the Brain & Mind Institute, The University of Sydney, 94 Mallett St, Camperdown, NSW 2050, Australia 3School of Information Science and Engineering, Central South University, Changsha, Hunan 410083, China 4Laboratory of Medical Genetics, Central South University, Changsha, Hunan 410078, China 5National Clinical Research Center for Geriatric Diseases, Xiangya Hospital, Central South University, Changsha, Hunan 410008, China 6Key Laboratory of Hunan Province in Neurodegenerative Disorders, Central South University, Changsha, Hunan 410008, China 7Parkinson’s Disease Center of Beijing Institute for Brain Disorders, Beijing 100069, China 8Collaborative Innovation Center for Brain Science, Shanghai 200032, China 9Collaborative Innovation Center for Genetics and Development, Shanghai 200433, China 10Xinjiang Medical University, Xinjiang 830011, China Correspondence should be addressed to Hong Jiang; [email protected] Received 1 March 2018; Revised 9 April 2018; Accepted 27 May 2018; Published 25 June 2018 Academic Editor: Elena Pasyukova Copyright © 2018 Zhe Long et al. This is an open access article distributed under the Creative Commons Attribution License, which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original work is properly cited. Spinocerebellar ataxia type 3 (SCA3) or Machado-Joseph disease (MJD) is the most common autosomal dominant spinocerebellar ataxia in China with highly clinical heterogeneity, such as progressive cerebellar ataxia, dysarthria, pyramidal signs, external ophthalmoplegia, dysphagia, and distal muscle atrophy. It is caused by the abnormal expansion of CAG repeats in a coding region of ATXN3. However, by focusing on the ATXN3 itself cannot fully explain the heterogeneous clinical features of SCA3/ MJD. With the discovery of the increasing number of long noncoding RNAs (lncRNAs) that are believed to be involved in spinocerebellar ataxia type 8 (SCA8) and Huntington disease (HD), we wonder whether the lncRNAs are differentially expressed in the SCA3/MJD patients compared to the nonpatients. As the first step, we used lncRNA-Seq to investigate differential expression of the lncRNAs in the SCA3/MJD mice. Two known lncRNAs, n297609 and n297477, and a novel lncRNA TCONS_00072962 have been identified in SCA3/MJD mice with abnormal expression. The first discovery of the novel lncRNA TCONS_00072962 enriched the lncRNA expression profile in the SCA3/MJD mouse model. 1. Introduction heterogeneity, such as progressive cerebellar ataxia, dysar- thria, pyramidal signs, external ophthalmoplegia, dysphagia, PolyQ diseases is a group of disorders caused by CAG repeat and distal muscle atrophy, with wide range of age of onset expansions within the, respectively, responsible genes, includ- (AO) from 4 to 75 years old [6, 7]. ing Huntington disease (HD), dentatorubral-pallidoluysian The SCA3/MJD, the most common case, accounts for atrophy (DRPLA), spinocerebellar ataxias (SCA1, SCA2, 62.64% of autosomal dominant spinocerebellar ataxia in SCA3/Machado-Joseph disease, SCA6, SCA7, and SCA17) China [8]. The abnormal expansion of CAG in the causative [1–3], and the recently discovered Huntington disease-like gene ATXN3 coding region causes SCA3/MJD. Healthy indi- 2 (HDL2) [4, 5]. Among these, the SCA3/MJD is an auto- viduals usually have 12–40 CAG repeats, while SCA3/MJD somal dominantly inherited disorder with high clinical patients over 51 repeats [9, 10]. The abnormally translated 2 International Journal of Genomics polyQ tract leads to a conformational change in ATXN3, Laboratory was used, and the second generation was used resulting in alternations of protein properties, including in this study. The CAG repeats in the first generation mice stability, subcellular location, and easier aggregation [11]. are 84, and the ATXN3 gene is widely expressed in various These alternations further lead to loss or gain of function organs of the body, including the cerebellum, cerebral cortex, and cause pathogenic effects. To explain the toxic effects, heart, lung, spleen, liver, and skeletal muscle [26, 27]. The several hypotheses of pathogenic mechanisms, not mutually SCA3/MJD adult mice (32 weeks old) of the second genera- exclusive, have been presented, including aggregate formation tion, in which carrying ATXN3 positive rate is about 50%, [1, 11–13], disturbance of cellular protein and Ca2+ homeo- and comparable age, number, and weight wild-type mice stasis [13–15], dysregulation of transcription [15, 16], axonal were used for experimental analysis. The study was approved transport deficits [17, 18], impairment of mitochondrial func- by the Ethics Committee in Xiangya Hospital of Central tion [15, 19, 20], and abnormal neuronal signalling [11]. South University. Long noncoding RNA (lncRNA) is defined the nontran- slatable RNA with the length of 200 nucleotides or above. 2.2. Validation of Genotype of SCA3/MJD Mice. Validation of The lncRNAs used to be regarded as the transcriptional genotype was conducted in the second generation. Poly- “noise,” the products of RNA polymerase II transcription, merase chain reaction (PCR), agarose gel electrophoresis, and did not have the biological function. However, the and capillary electrophoresis sequencing were used for emerging evidence has proved their significant roles in the genotype validation. Genomic DNA was extracted from regulation of gene transcription, posttranscriptional regula- mice tails. CAG repeats were amplified using a pair of tion, and epigenetic regulation [21, 22]. Previous studies primers 5′-CCAGTGACTACTTTGATTCG-3′ (forward) suggested that lncRNAs regulate the gene expression and 5′-TGGCCTTTCACATGGATGTGAA-3′ (reverse). The transcriptional processes by several different functional amplification reactions contained 1 μL genomic DNA mechanisms. Some show function as transcriptional regula- (50 ng/μL), 0.2 μL rTaq DNA polymerase (Takara, Japan), tion in cis or trains, some as an organization of nuclear 0.2 μL dNTPs, 0.2 μL of each primer (100 ng/μL), 7.2 μL ster- domains, and others as regulation of proteins or RNA mole- ile water, and 1.0 μL 10x buffer (TaKaRa, Japan), for a total of cules. All the evidence indicated that lncRNAs have great 10 μL. The amplification was performed in Mastercyclers potential to impact physiological and pathological processes. (Eppendorf AG, 22331 Hamburg, Germany) under the ° Furthermore, it has been found that some transcripts of following conditions: initial denaturation at 95.0 C for 5 ° lncRNA encode small proteins [23], making the noncoding minutes, followed by 38 cycles of 95.0 C for 30 seconds, ° ° inappropriate any longer to name this class of RNA. 59.0 C for 30 seconds, and 72.0 C for 30 seconds. PCR prod- In recent years, accumulating studies have found that ucts were detected by 1% agarose gel electrophoresis (120 v, lncRNAs are associated with neurodegenerative diseases. 30 min), and the results of PCR amplification were observed Spinocerebellar ataxia type 8 (SCA8), a kind of slowly pro- on imaging system after 15 minutes of ethidium bromide gressive ataxia, is caused by the abnormal expansion of (EB) staining. Capillary electrophoresis sequencing was used (CTG)n within the responsible gene ATXN8. A study pro- for testing the repeats number of (CAG)n and performed on poses that the pathogenesis of SCA8 involves both protein ABI 3730XL DNA Analyzer (Applied Biosystems, Foster and RNA gain-of-function mechanisms. (CTG)n-expanded City, CA, USA). ATXN8 encodes a pathogenic protein, and the antisense strand encodes CUG-enriched lncRNA ATXN8OS which is 2.3. Validation of Phenotype of SCA3/MJD Mice. The pheno- deposited in the nucleus and activates alternative splicing, type was validated using the footprint and rotating tests. For resulting in an alternation of the expression of GABA-A footprint pattern analysis, the hind paws of mice were transport factor 4 (GAT4/Gabt4) and finally loss of the painted with black ink and the forepaws were painted with GABAergic inhibition [24]. red ink. The mice walked along a narrow corridor paved with In a separate study, the expression of lncRNA was white paper. Pretraining was conducted for one week before compared between the normal brain tissue and the brain tis- the formal test. Mice were tested three times with 5-minute sue of patients with Huntington disease. A total of 35 upreg- intervals. Stride length, hind paw width, front paw width, ulated and 146 downregulated lncRNA molecules were and front/hind footprint overlap were measured. For rota- identified, and NEAT1 was selected by Bioinformatics. Based tion, mice were placed on a rotating rod and must maintain on the cell-level experiments, it was found that overexpres- its balance. The interval from the start of the rod rotating fi sion of NEAT1 was signi cantly resistant to H2O2-induced to the mice falling from the rotating rod was recorded. Mice cellular damage, providing a new potential strategy for clini- were tested on separate trials at fixed speeds