Peroxisomal Dynamics in the Intestinal Crypt

The intestinal epithelium is one of the fastest renewing tissues in mammals. Intestinal stem cells (ISC) are responsible for producing all differentiated cell types of the intestinal epithelium, through transit amplifying generations. ISCs reside in the crypt domain of the intestine which are pit like structures located between villi protrusions. The ISCs are interspersed between Paneth cells, which along with cells of the surrounding mesenchyme act as the stem cell niche. ISCs have been reported to divide symmetrically to produce two identical daughter cells. However, the symmetry of these divisions has been concluded based on mathematical modelling which do not account for the possibility that a very small population of ISCs would divide asymmetrically or for qualitative asymmetry occurring in these divisions. Asymmetric cell division is a process by which daughter cells gain different amounts or different qualities of certain factors which lead to their differing fates. Asymmetric division can include asymmetric segregation of organelles such as mitochondria or peroxisomes, which have both been shown to be asymmetrically apportioned in yeast mitosis. Peroxisomes are single membrane enclosed organelles which function in many metabolic processes, most importantly in lipid and reactive oxygen species (ROS) metabolism. Mitochondria have been reported to be age selectively apportioned during cell division of mammary epithelial stem like cell. The same has been shown to occur for peroxisomes based on unpublished data from my host lab. This prior research of the lab also indicates that selective peroxisomal apportioning would require peroxisomes to be specifically gathered at the centrosomes from metaphase onwards to control their inheritance. In this thesis I will look into peroxisomal dynamics in the intestinal crypt. The first aim is to verify the Lgr5-EGFP-creERT2 x LSL-SNAP-tag-PTS1 mouse model, by checking that the SNAP-tag-PTS1 fusion protein properly localizes to peroxisomes. Secondly, I aim to look into the ages of peroxisomes in ISCs compared to differentiated cells, concentrating on Paneth cells. The third and final aim is to look into the apportioning of old and young peroxisomes during stem cell division. This aim includes looking into the peroxisomal localization at metaphase and checking how peroxisomes are expected to be inherited in later mitotic cells. The SNAP-tag-PTS1 construct adequately co-localizes with the peroxisomal membrane protein 70, also at the old SNAP labelling time point chosen for the following experiments. The SNAP-tag-PTS1 old labelling does not co-localize with the lysosomal associated protein Lamp1 to a high extent, indicating that the peroxisomes with the labelling are not in autolysosomes in amounts that would hamper with the results of the following experiments. There is no noticeable difference between the age contents of peroxisomes in stem cells versus Paneth cells. However, when moving up from base of the crypt to the transit amplifying zone there seems to be an increasing number of peroxisomes, as would be expected based on previous reports of peroxisomes in the intestinal epithelium. At metaphase it seems that approximately half of the cells have a tendency to gather peroxisomes at one centrosome to a higher extent than elsewhere in the cell. Interestingly this condensation was rarely seen at both centrosomes in a given cell. A large heterogeneity was observed when looking into the apportioning of old and young peroxisomes in anaphase or later on in mitosis. A majority of the dividing cells apportioned approximately equal amount of young and old peroxisomes to both daughter cells. Some divisions apportioned inequal amounts of peroxisomes to the daughter cells, with one daughter getting more peroxisomes overall. The daughter cell getting more peroxisomes was more likely to get significantly more of the old label than its pair. This indicates that there could be a small subpopulation of intestinal stem cells that divide their peroxisomes asymmetrically qualitatively as well as quantitatively, however, to definitively conclude this further research is required.