Capicua-dependent transcriptional changes in adult mouse cerebellum

Analysis of cerebella from Capicua (Cic) mutant mice and wild-type controls at 28 days of age (P28). Spinocerebellar ataxia type 1 (SCA1) is a fatal neurodegenerative disease caused by expansion of a translated CAG repeat in Ataxin-1 (ATXN1). The transcriptional repressor Cic binds directly to Atxn1 and plays a key role in SCA1 pathogenesis. Two isoforms of Cic, long (Cic-L) and short (Cic-S), are transcribed from alternative promoters. Using embryonic stem cells in which the Cic locus was targeted by an insertion of a genetrap cassette between exon 1 of the Cic-L isoform and exon 1 of the Cic-S isoform, we generated mice that carried this allele and backcrossed these onto a Swiss Webster (CD-1) strain for >6 generations. The resulting Cic-L-/- mice completely lack the Cic-L isoform with ~10% of Cic-S remaining. These data were used to compare with previous microarray data to determine the Cic-depedent pathogenic mechanisms in SCA1.

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Fryer JD, Yu P, Kang H, Mandel-Brehm C, Carter AN, Crespo-Barreto J, Gao Y, Flora A, Shaw C, Orr HT, Zoghbi HY