Biology subjects

Collins, A.

Publications and source records attributed to Collins, A..

At least 19 recordsLinked to original sources

bioRxiv2026

Wavelet analysis of human recombination rates demonstrates divergence on fine scales

BackgroundRecombination rates can be estimated across the genome, underpinning genetic analyses such as identification of regions under selection. Accurate recombination mapping requires observing a large number of recombination events, necessitating large sample sizes to achieve high resolution. This can be prohibitive to some analyses, so population-based estimates can also be used, leveraging the increasing population genomic data available to researchers. ObjectiveThis study aimed to determine the extent to which population-based recombination maps from different human populations are similar and assess to what extent they can be used interchangeably. MethodsWavelet analysis was employed to decompose recombination rate signals along a chromosome and evaluate the proportion of variance explained at different scales. This method also enabled the assessment of correlations across scales and identification of regions with high coherence between datasets. The analysis focused on a region of chromosome 22 in human populations of European and African ancestry. ResultsRecombination rates are not closely conserved across populations, with the greatest divergence observed at fine scales. Coherence between populations varied significantly across all scales. ConclusionAs recombination maps differ substantially between human populations, for genetic analyses involving recombination maps, it is recommended to use maps specific to the population under study.

genomics↗

bioRxiv2026

Integrating conventional tagging and acoustic telemetry improves estimates of post-release survival in a highly targeted reef fish

Accurate estimation of post-release survival is fundamental to fisheries stock assessment and effective management. Conventional tag-return studies and acoustic telemetry are commonly used to estimate this probability, yet each approach has limitations when applied independently. Using gag (Mycteroperca microlepis) as a case study, we integrated data from a large-scale conventional tagging program and an acoustic telemetry experiment within a discrete-time statistical modeling framework that links relative recapture risk with telemetry-derived fate. This approach enabled estimation of post-release survival across a broad gradient of capture depths representative of recreational fishing conditions. Estimated survival was high in shallow waters ({approx}97%) but declined with increasing capture depth, consistent with depth-related barotrauma. Applying model predictions to depth distributions from the recreational fishery yielded annual and monthly post-release survival probabilities. Annual estimates were consistent with values assumed in recent stock assessments, while monthly values highlighted seasonal patterns potentially relevant for management. This integrated framework advances post-release survival estimation by combining the extensive sample sizes and environmental coverage characteristic of conventional tagging data with the direct fate observations provided by acoustic telemetry, and offers a transferable approach for other highly targeted fisheries.

ecology↗

bioRxiv2026

Pathway incompatibility between NF-κB and RAS signaling constrains oncogenicity in B-cell leukemia

B-cell acute lymphoblastic leukemia (B-ALL) arises from lymphoid precursors that fail to complete normal B-cell maturation and frequently harbor activating mutations in the RAS-ERK pathway that promote leukemic survival. These cells remain dependent on precursor B-cell receptor (pre-BCR)-associated signaling programs, which oncogenic RAS can functionally mimic. While oncogenesis is often attributed to cooperating mutations, mutually exclusive genetic alterations suggest that certain oncogenic pathways may be functionally incompatible. In our previous work, we proposed the concept of pathway incompatibility, in which co-activation of specific oncogenic signaling programs antagonizes their oncogenic activity and suppresses tumorigenesis. Here, we examined the interaction between RAS signaling and canonical NF-kB activity in B-ALL within this framework. Genomic analysis revealed underrepresentation of cases harboring concurrent RAS and NF-kB pathway alterations. Functionally, activation of canonical NF-kB induced apoptotic depletion of RAS-pathway-mutated B-ALL cells, whereas activation of the non-canonical pathway conferred a growth advantage. Mechanistically, canonical NF-kB suppressed pre-BCR-associated signaling programs and increased expression of mature B-cell receptor (BCR) components, indicating a developmental signaling state incompatible with oncogenic RAS activity. Consistent with this framework, enforced oncogenic RAS signaling was poorly tolerated in BCR-positive lymphoma cells unless BCR expression was disrupted. Pharmacologic activation of NF-kB reduced ERK signaling and selectively impaired viability of RAS-pathway-mutated B-ALL cells, with enhanced effects in combination with ERK inhibition. Together, these findings identify canonical NF-kB signaling as a developmental context-dependent constraint on RAS-driven leukemogenesis and support pathway incompatibility as a determinant of the oncogenicity of signaling pathways.

cancer biology↗

bioRxiv2025

Novel mouse model reveals neurodevelopmental origin of PMM2-CDG brain pathology

Congenital disorders of glycosylation (CDG) are a group of neurogenetic conditions resulting from disruptions in the cellular glycosylation machinery. The majority of CDG patients have compound heterozygous pathogenic variants in the phosphomannomutase 2 (PMM2) gene. Individuals with PMM2-CDG exhibit multi-systemic symptoms, prominently featuring neurological deficits with nearly all patients exhibiting cerebellar hypoplasia and ataxia. To overcome embryonic lethality caused by whole body knock-out of Pmm2 and mimic patient-related compound heterozygous pathogenic variants, we paired a Pmm2 flox allele (Pmm2fl) with a catalytically inactive knock-in allele (Pmm2R137H), commonly present in PMM2-CDG patients. Mice with post-mitotic loss of PMM2 from neurons or astrocytes are indistinguishable from unaffected littermates, including in a broad battery of neurological assessments. In contrast, removal of PMM2 from embryonic neural precursor cells leads to cerebellar hypoplasia, ataxia, seizures, and early lethality. Comprehensive multi-omics profiling, including metabolomics, glycomics, single-cell transcriptomics, proteomics, and glycoproteomics, reveal widespread molecular disturbances throughout the brain, with the cerebellum showing the most pronounced disruption. These findings highlight the heightened dependency of the developing cerebellum on intact N-glycosylation, aligning with clinical observations in PMM2-CDG patients. Importantly, glycoproteomic alterations identified in our mouse model are corroborated in PMM2-CDG patient post-mortem cerebellar tissue, underscoring the translational relevance of our findings and implicating impaired synaptic transmission as a key pathogenic mechanism.

neuroscience↗

bioRxiv2025

Quantitative molecular cartography of emergency myelopoiesis reveals conserved modules of hematopoietic activation

Hematopoietic stem and progenitor cells (HSPC) respond to infections, inflammation, and regenerative challenges using a collection of cellular and molecular mechanisms termed emergency myelopoiesis (EM) pathways. However, it remains unclear how various EM inducers regulate HSPCs using shared or distinct molecular mechanisms. Here, we generate a comprehensive and generalizable cell annotation method (HemaScribe) and a refined quantitative model of hematopoietic differentiation (HemaScape) using single cell RNA sequencing (scRNA-seq) of HSPCs, which we apply to a broad range of EM modalities. We uncover multiple strategies to enhance myelopoiesis acting at different levels of the HSPC hierarchy, which are associated with both unique and shared transcriptional response modules. In particular, we identify a myeloid progenitor-based module of EM engagement across diverse inflammatory challenges, which informs outcome in adult and pediatric human acute myeloid leukemia. Collectively, our work illuminates fundamental regulatory mechanisms in hematopoietic regeneration that have direct translational applications in disease contexts. HIGHLIGHTSO_LINew HemaScribe method for hematopoietic progenitor annotation in scRNA-seq datasets C_LIO_LIDifferent emergency myelopoiesis (EM) inducers act at distinct hematopoiesis levels C_LIO_LIUnique and shared transcriptional response modules enacted by different EM inducers C_LIO_LIA myeloid progenitor EM module informs outcome in acute myeloid leukemia C_LI eTOC BLURBSwann et al. conduct comparative analysis of single cell RNA sequencing data from multiple emergency myelopoiesis models, finding that different perturbations act at various levels of the hematopoietic hierarchy and recruit distinct sets of molecular mechanisms to enhance myelopoiesis. In particular, they identify a conserved myeloid progenitor-based activation module across multiple disease conditions, which informs outcome in human acute myeloid leukemia. GRAPHICAL ABSTRACT O_FIG O_LINKSMALLFIG WIDTH=199 HEIGHT=200 SRC="FIGDIR/small/656712v2_ufig1.gif" ALT="Figure 1"> View larger version (52K): org.highwire.dtl.DTLVardef@ffcd62org.highwire.dtl.DTLVardef@50eaeorg.highwire.dtl.DTLVardef@6df44org.highwire.dtl.DTLVardef@12bfacf_HPS_FORMAT_FIGEXP M_FIG C_FIG

cell biology↗

bioRxiv2025

The vacuolar protein 8 (Vac8) homolog in Cryptococcus neoformans plays conserved and unique roles in vacuolar and cellular morphology, impacting important stress responses and virulence traits

Functionally similar to a plant vacuole or a mammalian lysosome, the fungal vacuole plays a vital role in many cellular processes. Most studies of the vacuole have been performed in the nonpathogenic yeast Saccharomyces cerevisiae; however, recently in pathogenic fungi, the vacuole has been implicated in host invasion in both plants and mammals highlighting an important role for the vacuole in pathogenesis. Here, we report that deletion of Cryptococcus neoformans vacuolar protein 8 (VAC8) results in a fragmented vacuole morphology, impairment of vacuolar fusion, and inability to form titan cells. Additionally, absence of Vac8 results in defective growth at high temperature and in the presence of caffeine, suggesting a defect in cell wall signaling. Interestingly, despite aberrant vacuole morphology, vac8{Delta} is slightly more resistant to fluconazole treatment, and displays increased resistance to hydrogen peroxide, suggesting the irregular vacuole morphology does not impair vacuole function. Like S. cerevisiae Vac8, C. neoformans Vac8 is comprised of armadillo repeat regions which form alpha helices that fold to form a superhelix allowing for increased protein-protein interaction. Many of the known binding partners of S. cerevisiae Vac8 are not present in the C. neoformans genome, suggesting novel functions for Vac8 in this fungus. Notably, deletion of VAC8 affected some virulence traits, providing support to targeting the fungal vacuole as a potential therapeutic intervention.

microbiology↗

bioRxiv2024

Integrated View of Baseline Protein Expression in Human Tissues using public Data Independent Acquisition datasets

The PRIDE database is the largest public data repository of mass spectrometry-based proteomics data and currently stores more than 40,000 datasets covering a wide range of organisms, experimental techniques and biological conditions. During the past few years, PRIDE has seen a significant increase in the amount of submitted Data-Independent Acquisition (DIA) proteomics datasets. This provides an excellent opportunity for large scale data reanalysis and reuse. We have reanalysed 15 public label-free DIA datasets across various healthy human tissues, to provide a state-of-the-art view of the human proteome in baseline conditions (without any perturbations). We computed baseline protein abundances and compared them across various tissues, samples and datasets. Our second aim was to compare protein abundances obtained here from the results of previous analyses using human baseline Data-Dependent Acquisition (DDA) datasets. We observed a good correlation across some tissues, especially in liver and colon but weak correlations were found in others, such as lung and pancreas. The reanalysed results including protein abundance values and curated metadata are made available to view and download from the resource Expression Atlas. For TOC Only O_FIG O_LINKSMALLFIG WIDTH=200 HEIGHT=126 SRC="FIGDIR/small/613191v2_ufig1.gif" ALT="Figure 1"> View larger version (26K): org.highwire.dtl.DTLVardef@1414dforg.highwire.dtl.DTLVardef@66606aorg.highwire.dtl.DTLVardef@143f862org.highwire.dtl.DTLVardef@1682406_HPS_FORMAT_FIGEXP M_FIG C_FIG

bioinformatics↗

bioRxiv2024

Two dynamic, N-terminal regions are required for function in Ribosomal RNA Adenine Dimethylase family members

The Ribosomal RNA Adenine Dimethylase (RRAD) family of enzymes facilitate ribosome maturation in all organisms by dimethylating two nucleotides of small subunit rRNA. Prominent members of this family are the human DIMT1 and bacterial KsgA enzymes. A sub-group of RRAD enzymes, named erythromycin resistance methyltransferases (Erm) dimethylate a specific nucleotide in large subunit rRNA to confer antibiotic resistance. How these enzymes regulate methylation so that it only occurs on the specific substrate is not fully understood. While performing random mutagenesis on the catalytic domain of ErmE, we discovered that mutants in an N-terminal region of the protein that is disordered in the ErmE crystal structure are associated with a loss of antibiotic resistance. By subjecting site-directed mutants of ErmE and KsgA to phenotypic and in vitro assays we found that the N-terminal region is critical for activity in RRAD enzymes: the N-terminal basic region promotes rRNA binding and the conserved motif likely assists in juxtaposing the adenosine substrate and the SAM cofactor. Our results and emerging structural data suggest this dynamic, N-terminal region of RRAD enzymes becomes ordered upon rRNA binding forming a cap on the active site required for methylation.

biochemistry↗

bioRxiv2024

LINC complex alterations are a hallmark of sporadic and familial ALS/FTD

Amyotrophic lateral sclerosis (ALS) is a neurodegenerative disorder that primarily affects motor neurons, leading to progressive muscle weakness and loss of voluntary muscle control. While the exact cause of ALS is not fully understood, emerging research suggests that dysfunction of the nuclear envelope (NE) may contribute to disease pathogenesis and progression. The NE plays a role in ALS through several mechanisms, including nuclear pore defects, nucleocytoplasmic transport impairment, accumulation of mislocalized proteins, and nuclear morphology abnormalities. The LINC complex is the second biggest multi-protein complex in the NE and consists of the SUN1/2 proteins spanning the inner nuclear membrane and Nesprin proteins embedded in the outer membrane. The LINC complex, by interacting with both the nuclear lamina and the cytoskeleton, transmits mechanical forces to the nucleus regulating its morphology and functional homeostasis. In this study we show extensive alterations to the LINC complex in motor and cortical iPSC-derived neurons and spinal cord organoids carrying the ALS causative mutation in the C9ORF72 gene (C9). Importantly, we show that such alterations are present in vivo in a cohort of sporadic ALS and C9-ALS postmortem spinal cord and motor cortex biopsies. We also found that LINC complex disruption strongly correlated with nuclear morphological alterations occurring in ALS neurons, independently of TDP43 mislocalization. Altogether, our data establish morphological and functional alterations to the LINC complex as important events in ALS pathogenic cascade, making this pathway a possible target for both biomarker and therapy development.

neuroscience↗

bioRxiv2024

Altered nuclear envelope homeostasis is a key pathogenic event in C9ORF72-linked ALS/FTD

ALS and FTD are complex neurodegenerative disorders that primarily affects motor neurons in the brain and spinal cord, and cortical neurons in the frontal lobe. Although the pathogenesis of ALS/FTD is unclear, recent research spotlights nucleocytoplasmic transport impairment, DNA damage, and nuclear abnormalities as drivers of neuronal death. In this study, we show that loss of nuclear envelope (NE) integrity is a key pathology associated with nuclear pore complex (NPC) injury in C9ORF72 mutant neurons. Importantly, we show that mechanical stresses generated by cytoskeletal forces on the NE can lead to NPC injury, loss of nuclear integrity, and accumulation of DNA damage. Importantly, we demonstrate that restoring NE tensional homeostasis, by disconnecting the nucleus from the cytoskeleton, can rescue NPC injury and reduce DNA damage in C9ORF72 mutant cells. Together, our data suggest that modulation of NE homeostasis and repair may represent a novel and promising therapeutic target for ALS/FTD.

neuroscience↗

bioRxiv2023

Integrated analysis of baseline protein expression in pig tissues

The availability of an increasingly large amount of public proteomics datasets presents an opportunity for performing combined analyses to generate comprehensive organism-wide protein expression maps across different organisms and biological conditions. Sus scrofa, the domestic pig, is a model organism relevant for food production and for human biomedical research. Here we reanalyzed 14 public proteomics datasets from the PRIDE database coming from pig tissues to assess baseline (without any biological perturbation) protein abundance in 14 organs, encompassing a total of 20 healthy tissues from 128 samples. The analysis involved the quantification of protein abundance in 599 mass spectrometry runs. We compared protein expression patterns among different pig organs and examined the distribution of proteins across these organs. Then, we studied how protein abundances compared across different datasets and studied the tissue specificity of the detected proteins. Of particular interest, we conducted a comparative analysis of protein expression between pig and human tissues, revealing a high degree of correlation in protein expression among orthologs, particularly in brain, kidney, heart, and liver samples. We have integrated the protein expression results into the Expression Atlas resource for easy access and visualisation of the protein expression data individually or alongside gene expression data.

bioinformatics↗

bioRxiv2023

Multi-locus CRISPRi targeting with a single truncated guide RNA

A critical goal in functional genomics is evaluating which non-coding elements contribute to gene expression, cellular function, and disease. Functional characterization remains a challenge due to the abundance and complexity of candidate elements. Here, we develop a CRISPRi- based approach for multi-locus screening of putative transcription factor binding sites with a single truncated guide. A truncated guide with hundreds of sequence match sites can reliably disrupt enhancer activity, which expands the targeting scope of CRISPRi while maintaining repressive efficacy. We screen over 13,000 possible CTCF binding sites with 24 guides at 10 nucleotides in spacer length. These truncated guides direct CRISPRi-mediated deposition of repressive H3K9me3 marks and disrupt transcription factor binding at most sequence match target sites. This approach is valuable for elucidating functional transcription factor binding motifs or other repeated genomic sequences and is easily implementable with existing tools.

molecular biology↗

bioRxiv2023

Maternal IL-10 restricts fetal emergency myelopoiesis

Neonates, in contrast to adults, are highly susceptible to inflammation and infection. Here we investigate how late fetal liver (FL) mouse hematopoietic stem and progenitor cells (HSPC) respond to inflammation, testing the hypothesis that deficits in engagement of emergency myelopoiesis (EM) pathways limit neutrophil output and contribute to perinatal neutropenia. We show that despite similar molecular wiring as adults, fetal HSPCs have limited production of myeloid cells at steady state and fail to activate a classical EM transcriptional program. Moreover, we find that fetal HSPCs are capable of responding to EM-inducing inflammatory stimuli in vitro, but are restricted by maternal anti-inflammatory factors, primarily interleukin-10 (IL-10), from activating EM pathways in utero. Accordingly, we demonstrate that loss of maternal IL-10 restores EM activation in fetal HSPCs but at the cost of premature parturition. These results reveal the evolutionary trade-off inherent in maternal anti-inflammatory responses that maintain pregnancy but render the fetus unresponsive to EM activation signals and susceptible to infection. HIGHLIGHTSO_LIThe structure of the HSPC compartment is conserved from late fetal to adult life. C_LIO_LIFetal HSPCs have diminished steady-state myeloid cell production compared to adult. C_LIO_LIFetal HSPCs are restricted from engaging in emergency myelopoiesis by maternal IL-10. C_LIO_LIRestriction of emergency myelopoiesis may explain neutropenia in septic neonates. C_LI eTOC BLURBFetal hematopoietic stem and progenitor cells are restricted from activating emergency myelopoiesis pathways by maternal IL-10, resulting in inadequate myeloid cell production in response to inflammatory challenges and contributing to neonatal neutropenia.

developmental biology↗

bioRxiv2023

Dynamic noise estimation: A generalized method for modeling noise in sequential decision-making behavior

Computational cognitive modeling is an important tool for understanding the processes supporting human and animal decision-making. Choice data in decision-making tasks are inherently noisy, and separating noise from signal can improve the quality of computational modeling. Common approaches to model decision noise often assume constant levels of noise or exploration throughout learning (e.g., the{epsilon} -softmax policy). However, this assumption is not guaranteed to hold - for example, a subject might disengage and lapse into an inattentive phase for a series of trials in the middle of otherwise low-noise performance. Here, we introduce a new, computationally inexpensive method to dynamically infer the levels of noise in choice behavior, under a model assumption that agents can transition between two discrete latent states (e.g., fully engaged and random). Using simulations, we show that modeling noise levels dynamically instead of statically can substantially improve model fit and parameter estimation, especially in the presence of long periods of noisy behavior, such as prolonged attentional lapses. We further demonstrate the empirical benefits of dynamic noise estimation at the individual and group levels by validating it on four published datasets featuring diverse populations, tasks, and models. Based on the theoretical and empirical evaluation of the method reported in the current work, we expect that dynamic noise estimation will improve modeling in many decision-making paradigms over the static noise estimation method currently used in the modeling literature, while keeping additional model complexity and assumptions minimal.

neuroscience↗

bioRxiv2023

UCHL1-dependent control of Hypoxia-Inducible Factor Transcriptional Activity in Liver Disease.

Liver fibrosis is the excessive accumulation of extracellular matrix proteins that occurs in most types of chronic liver diseases. Fibrosis is associated with the activation of hepatic stellate cells (HSCs) which transdifferentiate into a myofibroblast like phenotype that is contractile, proliferative and profibrogenic. Hypoxia-inducible factor 1 (HIF1), an oxygen-sensitive transcription factor, is elevated during HSC activation and promotes the expression of profibrotic mediator HIF target genes. HIF activation during HSC activation can by either due to localised decreases in oxygen levels, or through oxygen-independent mechanisms that are not completely understood. Here we describe a role for the deubiquitinase UCHL1 in regulating HIF levels and activity during HSC activation and liver fibrosis. Increased HIF1 expression correlated with induction of UCHL1 mRNA and protein with HSC activation. Genetic deletion or chemical inhibition of UCHL1 impaired HIF activity through reduction of HIF1 levels. UCHL1 specifically cleaves the degradative ubiquitin chains from HIF1 leading to increased HIF1 levels, even in sufficiently oxygenated cells. Furthermore, our mechanistic studies have shown that UCHL1 elevates HIF activity through specific cleavage of degradative ubiquitin chains, elevates levels of pro-fibrotic gene expression and increases proliferation rates. These results demonstrate how small molecule inhibitors of DUBs can modulate the activity of HIF transcription factors in liver disease. Furthermore, inhibition of HIF activity via modulation of the ubiquitin-proteasomal degradation pathway may represent a therapeutic opportunity with other HIF-related pathologies. O_FIG O_LINKSMALLFIG WIDTH=200 HEIGHT=110 SRC="FIGDIR/small/523142v1_ufig1.gif" ALT="Figure 1"> View larger version (25K): org.highwire.dtl.DTLVardef@1d82ee9org.highwire.dtl.DTLVardef@1eff21aorg.highwire.dtl.DTLVardef@1ffb0eforg.highwire.dtl.DTLVardef@1b93dc9_HPS_FORMAT_FIGEXP M_FIG C_FIG

cell biology↗

bioRxiv2022

Assessing multiple evidence streams to decide on confidence for identification of post-translational modifications, within and across data sets

Phosphorylation is a post-translational modification of great interest to researchers due to its relevance in many biological processes. LC-MS/MS techniques have enabled high-throughput data acquisition with studies claiming identification and localisation of thousands of phosphosites. The identification and localisation of phosphosites emerge from different analytical pipelines and scoring algorithms, with uncertainty embedded throughout the pipeline. For many pipelines and algorithms, arbitrary thresholding is used, but little is known about the actual global false localisation rate in these studies. Recently, it has been suggested using decoy amino acids to estimate global false localisation rates of phosphosites, amongst the peptide-spectrum matches reported. We here describe a simple pipeline aiming to maximize the information extracted from these studies by objectively collapsing from peptide-spectrum match to peptidoform-site level, as well as combining findings from multiple studies while maintaining track of false localisation rates. We show that the approach is more effective than current processes that use a simpler mechanism for handling phosphosite identification redundancy within and across studies. In our case study using 8 rice phophoproteomics data sets, 6,368 unique sites were identified confidently identified using our decoy approach compared to 4,687 using traditional thresholding in which false localisation rates are unknown.

bioinformatics↗

bioRxiv2022

A cnidarian phylogenomic tree fitted with hundreds of 18S leaves

Cnidarians are critical members of aquatic communities and have been an experimental system for a diversity of research areas ranging from development to biomechanics to global change biology. Yet we still lack a well-resolved, taxonomically balanced, cnidarian tree of life to place this research in appropriate phylogenetic context. To move towards this goal, we combined data from 26 new anthozoan transcriptomes with 86 previously published cnidarian and outgroup datasets to generate two 748-locus alignments containing 123,051 (trimmed) and 449,935 (untrimmed) amino acids. We estimated maximum likelihood phylogenies for both matrices under partitioned and unpartitioned site-homogeneous and site-heterogenous models of substitution. We used the resulting topology to constrain a phylogenetic analysis of 1,814 small subunit ribosomal (18S) gene sequences from GenBank. Our results confirm the position of Ceriantharia (tube-dwelling anemones), a historically recalcitrant group, as sister to the rest of Hexacorallia across all phylogenies regardless of data matrix or model choice. We also find unanimous support for the sister relationship of Endocnidozoa and Medusozoa and propose the name Operculozoa for the clade uniting these taxa. Our 18S hybrid phylogeny provides insight into relationships of 15% of extant taxa. Together these data are an invaluable resource for comparative cnidarian research and provide perspective to guide future refinement of cnidarian systematics.

evolutionary biology↗

bioRxiv2022

Embryonic Vitamin D Deficiency Programs Hematopoietic Stem Cells to Induce Type 2 Diabetes

Environmental factors may alter the fetal genome to cause metabolic diseases. It is unknown whether embryonic immune cell programming impacts the risk of type 2 diabetes in later life. We demonstrate that transplantation of fetal hematopoietic stem cells (HSCs) made vitamin D deficient in utero induces diabetes in vitamin D-sufficient mice. Vitamin D deficiency epigenetically suppresses Jarid2 expression and activates the Mef2/PGC1a pathway in HSCs, which persists in recipient bone marrow, resulting in adipose macrophage infiltration. These macrophages secrete miR106-5p, which promotes adipose insulin resistance by repressing PIK3 catalytic subunit alpha and AKT signaling. Vitamin D-deficient monocytes from human cord blood have comparable Jarid2/Mef2/PGC1a expression changes and secrete miR-106b-5p, causing adipocyte insulin resistance. These findings suggest that vitamin D deficiency during development has epigenetic consequences impacting the systemic metabolic milieu.

physiology↗