Scintillon Institute proudly hosts

Jeanne F. Loring, Ph.D.

Professor of Developmental Neurobiology

Director, Center for Regenerative Medicine

Department of Molecular Medicine

The Scripps Research Institute

"The potential of pluripotent stem cells: from cell therapy to rescue of endangered species" 

on December 12th

at 1pm

Scintillon Institute seminar room at 6868 Nancy Ridge Drive

Promising Finding to Combat Autism

San Diego, CA

A group of researchers at Scintillon Institute in San Diego, California demonstrated a promising therapeutic intervention for autism in an animal model.  This study, published today in Nature Communications under the title of “NitroSynapsin therapy for a mouse MEF2C haploinsufficiency model of human autism”, proposes a therapeutic strategy to mitigate the hallmarks of MEF2C haploinsufficiency syndrome (MCHS), a condition where patients who carry one copy of defective MEF2C gene suffer from severe neurological conditions including autism spectrum disorders, intellectual disabilities, and seizures.  

Neurons of normal versus mutant cells

A group of researchers at Scintillon Institute in San Diego, California and their collaborators identified important roles of myocyte enhancer factor 2 (MEF2) in the pathogenesis of stress-induced photoreceptor degeneration, a condition that is thought to contribute to eye diseases, such as retinitis pigmentosa and age-related macular degeneration, as described in their two recent publications (1,2). MEF2 is an activity-dependent transcription factor which is expressed in various organs, such as the heart, lymphocytes and brain. Dr. Stuart Lipton’s group has continuously worked on MEF2 since 1993, when they first isolated MEF2C, one of four mammalian MEF2 isoforms, in the developing brain. These researchers made seminal discoveries that established the notion that MEF2 transcription factors are prominent regulators of neurogenesis and neuronal survival in the brain. More recently, their work on MEF2C mutant mice led to the recognition of the human disease called MEF2C haploinsufficiency syndrome, in which children with heterozygous loss-of-function MEF2C mutations suffer from severe neurological conditions, including autism spectrum disorders, developmental and intellectual disabilities and seizures.

Scientists at the Neural Center of the Scintillon Institute have been expanding on MEF2 research, most recently turning their eyes to eye diseases (pun intended). Retinal photoreceptor cells express two MEF2 isoforms: MEF2C and MEF2D, the latter apparently being the predominant form. In a recent study, the researchers examined mutant mice completely lacking MEF2C or MEF2D (MEF2C- or MEF2D- “null” mice). Interestingly, both mutant mice developed drastic retinal degenerations by postnatal day 30. They then took a candidate approach to identify the molecular pathways affected by the loss of MEF2D in MEF2D-null mice. Among the pathways they examined was the PGC1α pathway, which regulates mitochondrial biogenesis and thereby protects cells from degeneration. The Lipton group determined that transcription of PGC1α was indeed reduced in MEF2D-null mice. Yet by overexpressing PGC1α in the retina of MEF2D-null mice, the researchers found that the retinal degeneration could be rescued.

In another related study, they examined mice lacking one copy of MEF2D (MEF2D-heteretozygous or “het” mice). Unlike MEF2D-null mice, MEF2D-het mice did not show any retinal regeneration when they were raised under normal housing environment. The researchers then exposed MEF2D-het mice to a strong white fluorescent light for 2 hours. While this light exposure did not induce any retinal degeneration in the wild-type mice, it did cause significant retinal cell death in MEF2D-het mice. The light exposure massively produced reactive oxygen species (ROS), which appeared to be the toxic cause. When searching for affected downstream pathways, they found that the transcription factor NRF2, a regulator of the cellular antioxidant defense response, fails to be induced by light exposure in MEF2D mutant mice. The researchers attempted to reverse light-induced retinal cell death by treating the MEF2D-het mice with carnosic acid, a chemical they had previously identified as a potent antioxidant and NRF2 activator. Intriguingly, treatment of carnosic acid drastically ameliorated the amount of light-induced retinal cell death in the mutant mice.

Together, these studies from the Scintillon Institute identify MEF2 transcription factors as crucial molecules in maintaining eye health. Importantly, they have shown that MEF2 and its downstream pathways can be targeted by drugs such as carnosic acid. Incidentally, carnosic acid is a naturally occurring chemical that is contained in herbs such as rosemary and sage. So, there may be a health benefit in cooking chicken and turkey with rosemary!

Within Scintillon Institute's Neural Center, the new Eye Research Center is being established, parallel to its Neural Degenerative Disease Center, through an ongoing fund-raising campaign, and is currently recruiting new faculty members.

1. Proc Natl Acad Sci USA 114, E4048

2. Inv Opthal Vis Sci 58, 3741

01 August 2017

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE

Scintillon team to play key role in center for creating bioluminescent neuroscience tools

San Diego, CA

In a new collaboration, scientists will advance and freely circulate a research technology that makes brain cells able to produce, respond to, and communicate with light.

Nathan Shaner, Ph.D. will lead Scintillon Institute’s contribution to a national center dedicated to developing and disseminating new tools based on bioluminescence. The five-year grant from the National Science Foundation aims to develop tools to give nervous system cells the ability to make and respond to light. Neuroscientists can use these tools to manipulate and observe the circuitry of the brain in a variety of model organisms.

“NeuroNex Technology Hub” is a new collaboration of labs at Brown University, Central Michigan University and the Scintillon Institute. The team will improve upon and combine several unique bioengineering technologies to create new research capabilities, rooted in bioluminescence-the natural ability of cells to make light. They will then make their advances rapidly, easily, and freely available to the global scientific community.  

Shaner joins co-principal investigators Diane Lipscombe, Brown professor of neuroscience and director of the Brown Institute for Brain Science, and Ute Hochgeschwender, professor at CMU, on a team led by Christopher Moore, a professor of neuroscience at Brown. Justine Allen, a Brown neuroscience PhD alumna, will be the center’s administrative director.

Creating a curriculum, which combines elements of biology, chemistry, physics and engineering, to engage and educate high school students will be a key facet of the center’s mission.

“The highly visual nature of this research is a great way to get young people interested in science,” said Shaner. “Being able to see living neurons lighting up as they fire under a microscope can be a transformative experience for them.”

Jun 8, 2017, San Diego: Scintillon Institute Associate Professor Nathan Shaner is part of a nine-laboratory team that has been awarded a contract from the Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency (DARPA) as part of President Obama’s BRAIN Initiative. This project, dubbed “IBIS: Implantable bioluminescence interface system for an all-optical neuroprosthesis to the visual cortex,” will be funded under DARPA’s Neural Engineering System Design (NESD) program.

Ultimately, the IBIS team seeks to develop a neural interface system capable of simultaneously recording from more than one million neurons and stimulating more than one hundred thousand neurons in regions of the human sensory cortex. Accomplishing this goal will be a huge leap forward from existing neural interfaces, which are limited to much smaller numbers of neurons, and are too bulky and invasive to be used in human therapies.