Theresa A. Zwingman

We previously generated a mouse model with a mutation in the murine Atm gene that recapitulates many aspects of the childhood neurodegenerative disease ataxia-telangiectasia. Atm-deficient (Atm-/-) mice show neurological defects detected by motor function tests including the rota-rod, open-field tests and hind-paw footprint analysis. However, no gross histological abnormalities have been observed consistently in the cerebellum of any line of Atm-/- mice analyzed in most laboratories. Therefore, it may be that the neurologic dysfunction found in these animals is associated with predegenerative lesions. We performed a detailed analysis of the cerebellar morphology in two independently generated lines of Atm-/- mice to determine whether there was evidence of neuronal abnormality. We found a significant increase in the number of lysosomes in Atm-/- mice in the absence of any detectable signs of neuronal degeneration or other ultrastructural anomalies. In addition, we found that the ATM protein is predominantly cytoplasmic in Purkinje cells and other neurons, in contrast to the nuclear localization of ATM protein observed in cultured cells. The cytoplasmic localization of ATM in Purkinje cells is similar to that found in human cerebellum. These findings suggest that ATM may be important as a cytoplasmic protein in neurons and that its absence leads to abnormalities of cytoplasmic organelles reflected as an increase in lysosomal numbers.

Rocker (gene symbol rkr), a new neurological mutant phenotype, was found in descendents of a chemically mutagenized male mouse. Mutant mice display an ataxic, unstable gait accompanied by an intention tremor, typical of cerebellar dysfunction. These mice are fertile and appear to have a normal life span. Segregation analysis reveals rocker to be an autosomal recessive trait. The overall cytoarchitecture of the young adult brain appears normal, including its gross cerebellar morphology. Golgi-Cox staining, however, reveals dendritic abnormalities in the mature cerebellar cortex characterized by a reduction of branching in the Purkinje cell dendritic arbor and a "weeping willow" appearance of the secondary branches. Using simple sequence length polymorphism markers, the rocker locus was mapped to mouse chromosome 8 within 2 centimorgans of the calcium channel alpha1a subunit (Cacna1a, formerly known as tottering) locus. Complementation tests with the leaner mutant allele (Cacna1a(la)) produced mutant animals, thus identifying rocker as a new allele of Cacna1a (Cacna1a(rkr)). Sequence analysis of the cDNA revealed rocker to be a point mutation resulting in an amino acid exchange: T1310K between transmembrane regions 5 and 6 in the third homologous domain. Important distinctions between rocker and the previously characterized alleles of this locus include the absence of aberrant tyrosine hydroxylase expression in Purkinje cells and the separation of the absence seizures (spike/wave type discharges) from the paroxysmal dyskinesia phenotype. Overall these findings point to an important dissociation between the seizure phenotypes and the abnormalities in catecholamine metabolism, and they emphasize the value of allelic series in the study of gene function.

Fluorescence in situ hybridization using two or three probes was utilized to estimate the incidence of diploidy, the incidence of disomy for the sex chromosomes and chromosomes 16 and 18, and the proportion of Y- and X-chromosome bearing sperm, in a series of normal males. Our results demonstrate the importance of using an approach capable of distinguishing disomy from diploidy, as most donors had levels of diploidy higher than the disomy levels of individual chromosomes. Our analyses suggest the existence of chromosome-specific mechanisms of paternal non-disjunction, as sex chromosome disomy was approximately 1.5 times as common as disomy 16, and over two times as common as disomy 18. In studies of gametic sex ratio, we found little evidence for marked deviation from an expected 1:1 ratio.