A mutation in DOK7 in congenital myasthenic syndrome forms aggresome in cultured cells, and reduces DOK7 expression and MuSK phosphorylation in patient-derived iPS cells

Abstract

At the neuromuscular junction, the downstream of tyrosine kinase 7 (DOK7) enhances the phosphorylation of muscle-specific kinase (MuSK) and induces clustering of acetylcholine receptors (AChRs). We identified a patient with congenital myasthenic syndrome (CMS) with two heteroallelic mutations in DOK7, c.653-1G>C in intron 5 and c.190G>A predicting p.G64R in the pleckstrin homology domain. iPS cells established from the patient (CMS-iPSCs) showed that c.653-1G>C caused in-frame skipping of exon 6 (120 bp) and frame-shifting activation of a cryptic splice site deleting seven nucleotides in exon 6. p.G64R reduced the expression of DOK7 to 10% of wild-type DOK7, and markedly compromised AChR clustering in transfected C2C12 myotubes. p.G64R-DOK7 made insoluble aggresomes at the juxtanuclear region in transfected C2C12 myoblasts and COS7 cells, which were co-localized with molecules in the autophagosome system. A protease inhibitor MG132 reduced the soluble fraction of p.G64R-DOK7 and enhanced the aggresome formation of p.G64R-DOK7. To match the differentiation levels between patient-derived and control induced pluripotent stem cells (iPSCs), we corrected c.190G>A (p.G64R) by CRISPR/Cas9 to make isogenic iPSCs while retaining c.653-1G>C (CMS-iPSCsCas9). Myogenically differentiated CMS-iPSCs showed juxtanuclear aggregates of DOK7, reduced expression of endogenous DOK7 and reduced phosphorylation of endogenous MuSK. Another mutation, p.T77M, also made aggresome to a less extent compared with p.G64R in transfected COS7 cells. These results suggest that p.G64R-DOK7 makes aggresomes in cultured cells and is likely to compromise MuSK phosphorylation for AChR clustering.