Expression of mutant mRNA and protein in pancreatic cells derived from MODY3- iPS cells

PLoS One. 2019 May 30;14(5):e0217110. doi: 10.1371/journal.pone.0217110. eCollection 2019.

Abstract

Maturity-onset diabetes of the young (MODY) is a heterozygous monogenic diabetes; more than 14 disease genes have been identified. However, the pathogenesis of MODY is not fully understood because the patients' pancreatic beta cells are inaccessible. To elucidate the pathology of MODY, we established MODY3 patient-derived iPS (MODY3-iPS) cells using non-integrating Sendai virus (SeV) vector and examined the mutant mRNA and protein of HNF1A (Hepatocyte Nuclear factor 1A) after pancreatic lineage differentiation. Our patient had a cytosine insertion in the HNF1A gene (P291fsinsC) causing frameshift and making a premature termination codon (PTC). We confirmed these MODY3-iPS cells possessed the characteristics of pluripotent stem cells. After we differentiated them into pancreatic beta cells, transcripts of HNF1A gene were cloned and sequenced. We found that P291fsinsC mutant transcripts were much less frequent than wild ones, but they increased after adding cycloheximide (CHX) to the medium. These results suggested that mutant mRNA was destroyed by nonsense-mediated mRNA decay (NMD). Moreover, we were not able to detect any band of mutant proteins in pancreatic lineage cells which were differentiated from MODY3-iPSCs by western blot (WB) analysis. A scarcity of the truncated form of mutant protein may indicate that MODY3 might be caused by a haplo-insufficiency effect rather than a dominant negative manner.

Publication types

  • Research Support, Non-U.S. Gov't

MeSH terms

  • Cells, Cultured
  • Diabetes Mellitus, Type 2 / genetics
  • Diabetes Mellitus, Type 2 / metabolism*
  • Diabetes Mellitus, Type 2 / pathology
  • Female
  • Haploinsufficiency
  • Hepatocyte Nuclear Factor 1-alpha / genetics
  • Hepatocyte Nuclear Factor 1-alpha / metabolism*
  • Humans
  • Induced Pluripotent Stem Cells / metabolism
  • Induced Pluripotent Stem Cells / pathology*
  • Insulin-Secreting Cells / metabolism
  • Insulin-Secreting Cells / pathology*
  • Mutation*
  • RNA, Messenger / genetics*
  • RNA, Messenger / metabolism

Substances

  • HNF1A protein, human
  • Hepatocyte Nuclear Factor 1-alpha
  • RNA, Messenger

Supplementary concepts

  • Maturity-Onset Diabetes of the Young, Type 3

Associated data

  • figshare/10.6084/m9.figshare.8097947

Grants and funding

This work was supported by grants from the National Center for Global Health and Medicine (27A1201) to HO and (29A1016) to SGY. This work was also partially supported by a Grant-in-Aid (22510214) for Scientific Research from the MEXT to N.I.