Impaired retinoic acid signaling in cerebral cavernous malformations

Grdseloff, Nastasja; Boulday, Gwenola; Rödel, Claudia J.; Otten, Cécile; Vannier, Daphné Raphaelle; Cardoso, Cécile; Faurobert, Eva; Dogra, Deepika; Tournier-Lasserve, Elisabeth; Abdelilah-Seyfried, Salim (2023) Impaired retinoic acid signaling in cerebral cavernous malformations. Scientific Reports, 13 (1). ISSN 2045-2322

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Abstract

The capillary-venous pathology cerebral cavernous malformation (CCM) is caused by loss of CCM1/Krev interaction trapped protein 1 (KRIT1), CCM2/MGC4607, or CCM3/PDCD10 in some endothelial cells. Mutations of CCM genes within the brain vasculature can lead to recurrent cerebral hemorrhages. Pharmacological treatment options are urgently needed when lesions are located in deeply-seated and in-operable regions of the central nervous system. Previous pharmacological suppression screens in disease models of CCM led to the discovery that treatment with retinoic acid improved CCM phenotypes. This finding raised a need to investigate the involvement of retinoic acid in CCM and test whether it has a curative effect in preclinical mouse models. Here, we show that components of the retinoic acid synthesis and degradation pathway are transcriptionally misregulated across disease models of CCM. We complemented this analysis by pharmacologically modifying retinoic acid levels in zebrafish and human endothelial cell models of CCM, and in acute and chronic mouse models of CCM. Our pharmacological intervention studies in CCM2-depleted human umbilical vein endothelial cells (HUVECs) and krit1 mutant zebrafish showed positive effects when retinoic acid levels were increased. However, therapeutic approaches to prevent the development of vascular lesions in adult chronic murine models of CCM were drug regiment-sensitive, possibly due to adverse developmental effects of this hormone. A treatment with high doses of retinoic acid even worsened CCM lesions in an adult chronic murine model of CCM. This study provides evidence that retinoic acid signaling is impaired in the CCM pathophysiology and suggests that modification of retinoic acid levels can alleviate CCM phenotypes.

Item Type:	Article
Uncontrolled Keywords:	Developmental biology; Molecular medicine
Subjects:	NATURAL SCIENCES > Biology > Biochemistry and Molecular Biology NATURAL SCIENCES > Biology > Genetics, Evolution and Phylogenetics
Divisions:	Division for Marine and Enviromental Research
Depositing User:	Cecile Francoise Eleonore Otten
Date Deposited:	12 Dec 2023 12:06
URI:	http://fulir.irb.hr/id/eprint/8264
DOI:	10.1038/s41598-023-31905-0

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