Transcriptional repression leading to Parkinson's disease

摘要

Parkinson's disease is caused by the preferential loss of substantia nigra dopamine neurons. A Parkin Interacting Substrate, PARIS (ZNF746) is identified. The levels of PARIS are regulated by the ubiquitin proteasome system via binding to and ubiquitination by the E3 ubiquitin ligase, parkin. PARIS is a KRAB and zinc finger protein that accumulates in models of parkin inactivation and in human brain Parkinson's disease patients. PARIS represses the expression of the transcriptional co-activator, PGC-1alpha and the PGC-1alpha target gene, NRF-1 by binding to insulin response sequences in the PGC-1alpha promoter. Conditional knockout of parkin in adult animals leads to progressive loss of dopamine (DA) neurons that is PARIS dependent. Overexpression of PARIS causes selective loss of DA neurons in the substantia nigra, which is reversed by either parkin or PGC-1alpha co-expression. The identification of PARIS provides a molecular mechanism for neurodegeneration due to parkin inactivation.