Biology subjects

Khalil, H.

Publications and source records attributed to Khalil, H..

5 recordsLinked to original sources

bioRxiv2023

Patterns of Neural Activation During an Initial Social Stress Encounter are Predictive of Future Susceptibility or Resilience: A FosTRAP2 Study

Repeated social stress is a significant factor in triggering depression in vulnerable individuals, and genetic and environmental factors interact to contribute to this vulnerability. Interestingly, the role of experience in shaping vulnerability is not well studied. To what extent does an individuals initial reaction to a given stressor influence their response to similar stressors in the future? And how is this initial response encoded at the neural level to bias towards future susceptibility or resilience? The Chronic Social Defeat Stress (CSDS) mouse model offers an ideal opportunity to address these questions. Following 10 days of repeated social defeat, mice diverge into two distinct populations of social reactivity: resilient (interactive) and susceptible (avoidant). It is notable that the CSDS paradigm traditionally uses genetically inbred mice, indicating that this divergence is not genetically determined. Furthermore, the emergence of the two phenotypes only occurs following several days of exposure to stress, suggesting that the repeated experience of social defeat influences future susceptibility or resilience. In this study, we asked whether specific patterns of neural activation during the initial exposure to the social defeat stress can predict whether an individual will eventually emerge as resilient or susceptible. To address this question, we used Fos-TRAP2 mouse technology to capture brain-wide neural activation patterns elicited during the initial stress exposure, while allowing the mice to go on to experience the full course of CSDS and diverge into resilient and susceptible populations. Using a high-throughput brain-wide cell counting approach, we identified the bed nucleus of the stria terminalis and lateral septal nucleus as key hubs for encoding social defeat. We also identified the basomedial amygdala as a hub for encoding future susceptibility, and the hippocampal CA1 area and medial habenula for encoding future resilience. Our findings demonstrate that the initial experience with social stress induces a distinct brain-wide pattern of neural activation associated with defeat, as well as unique activation patterns that appear to set the stage for future resilience or susceptibility. This highly orchestrated response to defeat is seen especially in animals that emerge as resilient compared to susceptible. Overall, our work represents a critical starting place for elucidating mechanisms whereby early experiences can shape vulnerability to affective disorders.

neuroscience↗

bioRxiv2021

Genomic Modules and Intramodular Network Convergency of Susceptibility and Resilience in Multimodeled Stress in Male Mice

The multifactorial etiology of stress-related disorders is a challenge in developing synchronized medical standards for treatment and diagnosis. It is largely unknown whether there exists molecular convergence in preclinical models of stress generated using disparate construct validity. Using RNA-sequencing (RNA-seq), we investigated the genomic signatures in the ventral hippocampus, which mostly regulates affective behavior, in mouse models that recapitulate the hallmarks of anxiety and depression. Chronic oral corticosterone (CORT), a model that causes a blunted endocrine response to stress, induced anxiety- and depression-like behavior in wildtype mice and mice heterozygous for the gene coding for brain-derived neurotrophic factor (BDNF) Val66Met, a variant associated with genetic susceptibility to stress. In a separate set of mice, chronic social defeat stress led to a susceptible or a resilient population, whose proportion was dependent on housing conditions, standard housing or enriched environment. A rank-rank-hypergeometric (RRHO) analysis of the RNA-seq data set across models demonstrated that in mice treated with CORT and susceptible mice raised in standard housing differentially expressed genes (DEGs) converged toward gene networks involved in similar biological functions. Weighted gene co-expression analysis generated 54 unique modules of interconnected gene hubs, two of which included a combination of all experimental groups and were significantly enriched in DEGs, whose function was consistent with that predicted in the RRHO GO analysis. This multimodel approach showed transcriptional synchrony between models of stress with hormonal, environmental or genetic construct validity shedding light on common genomic drivers that embody the multifaceted nature of stress-related disorders.

neuroscience↗

bioRxiv2019

Satellite cell depletion in early adulthood attenuates muscular dystrophy pathogenesis

Satellite cells are skeletal muscle resident stem cells that regenerate adult myofibers following an acute injury to muscle. Despite the assumption that the loss of satellite cells would be detrimental in a chronic regeneration-inducing muscle disease such as muscular dystrophy, this assumption has never been tested using mouse genetics. Here we generated a novel model of satellite cell ablation and crossed it with mouse models of muscular dystrophy to directly investigate how critical these cells are in maintaining muscle during a chronic degenerative disorder. Satellite cell deletion in 2-week-old young dystrophic mice provided noticeable improvements in histopathology and function, although at this early timepoint it was utimately detrimental because muscle size was not sufficient to permit survival. However, depletion of satellite cells beginning at 2 months of age in dystrophic mice provided similar histological and functional improvements but without compromising muscle size. The improved profile showed fewer damaged fibers, less myofiber central nucleation, increased sarcolemma integrity, decreased fibrosis and a dramatic size increase in the remaining myofibers. At the functional level, young adult dystrophic mice lacking satellite cells performed significantly better than those with satellite cells when exercised on a treadmill. Thus, loss of satellite cells during early adulthood in dystrophic mice produces an unexpected protective effect.

molecular biology↗

bioRxiv2018

Inhibition of mitochondrial permeability transition by deletion of the ANT family and CypD

The mitochondrial permeability transition pore (MPTP) has resisted molecular identification for decades. The original model of the MPTP had the adenine nucleotide translocator (ANT) as the inner membrane pore-forming component. Indeed, reconstitution experiments showed that recombinant or purified ANT generates MPTP-like pores in lipid bilayers. This model was challenged when mitochondria from Ant1/2 double null mouse liver still showed MPTP activity. Because mice contain and express 3 Ant genes, here we reinvestigated the genetic basis for the ANTs as comprising the MPTP. Liver mitochondria from Ant1, Ant2, and Ant4 deficient mice were highly refractory to Ca2+-induced MPT, and when also given cyclosporine A, MPT was completely inhibited. Moreover, liver mitochondria from mice with quadruple deletion of Ant1, Ant2, Ant4 and Ppif (cyclophilin D, target of CsA) lacked Ca2+-induced MPT. Finally, inner membrane patch clamping in mitochondria from Ant1, Ant2 and Ant4 triple null mouse embryonic fibroblasts (MEFs) showed a loss of MPT-like pores. Our findings suggest a new model of MPT consisting of two distinct molecular components, one of which is the ANTs and the other of which is unknown but requires CypD.\n\nOne Sentence SummaryGenetic deletion of Ant1/2/4 and Ppif in mice fully inhibits the mitochondrial permeability transition pore

cell biology↗

bioRxiv2018

An acute immune response underlies the benefit of cardiac adult stem cell therapy

Clinical trials using adult stem cells to regenerate damaged heart tissue continue to this day1-3 despite ongoing questions of efficacy and a lack of mechanistic understanding of the underlying biologic effect4-6. The rationale for these cell therapy trials is derived from animal studies that show a modest but reproducible improvement in cardiac function in models of cardiac ischemic injury7-9. Here we examined the mechanistic basis for cell therapy in mice after ischemia/reperfusion (I/R) injury, and while heart function was enhanced, it was not associated with new cardiomyocyte production. Cell therapy improved heart function through an acute sterile immune response characterized by the temporal and regional induction of CCR2+ and CX3CR1+ macrophages. Here we observed that intra-cardiac injection of 2 distinct types of progenitor cells, freeze/thaw-killed cells or a chemical inducer of the innate immune response similarly induced regional CCR2+ and CX3CR1+ macrophage accumulation and provided functional rejuvenation to the I/R-injured heart. Mechanistically, this selective macrophage response altered cardiac fibroblast activity and reduced border zone extracellular matrix (ECM) content and enhanced the mechanical properties of the injured area. The functional benefit of cardiac cell therapy is thus due to an acute inflammatory-based wound healing response that rejuvenates the mechanical properties of the infarcted area of the heart. Such results suggest a re-evaluation of strategies underlying cardiac cell therapy in current and planned human clinical trials.

cell biology↗