Browsing by Subject "NPC"

The progressive myoclonus epilepsy of Unverricht-Lundborg type (EPM1) is a neurodegenerative disease caused by loss-of-function mutations in the cystatin B gene (CSTB) with juvenile onset, stimulus sensitive action-activated myoclonus, generalized tonic-clonic seizures and ataxia. The cystatin B (CSTB) protein inhibits cysteine proteases, such as cathepsin L, which has been reported to cleave histone H3 N-terminal tails in mouse embryonic stem cell differentiation. We have shown previously that histone H3 cleavage is an irreversible epigenetic chromatin modification, which occurs in cystatin B-deficient (Cstb-/-) mice derived neural progenitor cells during differentiation. In this study, first, we used the wild-type E13.5 mice brain derived neural cells in culture to determine the effect of extrinsic signaling factors to our earlier developed ex vivo neurosphere cell model. We also confirmed that the histone H3 cleavage positive progenitor cells are primarily neuronal cells. Then, we used phenotype rescue of Cstb-/- neural progenitor cells and showed that CSTB is a negative regulator of histone H3 cleavage. In wt mouse neurosphere cryosections, we showed that cathepsin B and L are not expressed in the nucleus of neural cells before differentiation.