Age-related neurodegeneration and cognitive impairments of NRMT1 knockout mice are preceded by misregulation of RB and expansion of the neural stem cell population

Abstract

N-terminal methylation is an important post-translational modification that regulates protein/DNA interactions and plays a role in many cellular processes, including DNA damage repair, mitosis, and transcriptional regulation. Our generation of a constitutive knockout mouse for the N-terminal methyltransferase NRMT1, demonstrated its loss results in severe developmental abnormalities and premature aging. As premature aging is often accompanied by neurodegeneration, we more specifically examined how NRMT1 loss affects neural pathology and cognitive behaviors. Here we find that Nrmt1-/- mice exhibit postnatal enlargement of the lateral ventricles, age-dependent striatal and hippocampal neurodegeneration, memory impairments, and hyperactivity. These morphological and behavior abnormalities are preceded by alterations in neural stem cell (NSC) development. Depletion of quiescent NSC pools in Nrmt1-/- mice is concurrent with expansion of intermediate progenitor and neuroblast pools. These phenotypes are similar to those seen with loss of the NRMT1 target retinoblastoma protein (RB), and we see that NRMT1 loss leads to derepression of RB target genes and abnormal RB phosphorylation and degradation. As also seen with RB loss, neurons in Nrmt1-/- mice fail to exit cell cycle and ultimately undergo NOXA-mediated apoptosis, indicating that early misregulation of RB in Nrmt1-/- mice promotes premature NSC proliferation and contributes to subsequent neurodegenerative phenotypes.