, 2009). One possibility is that, in this context, the UPR might be triggered by a specific lesion signal (or the lack of an “integrity signal”) generated in the injured axon, to remodel the ER and spur regeneration. The identity and indeed existence of such signals remains to be determined. In principle, the UPR response may be directly triggered by physical or functional damage to ER tubular membranes in axons, thus providing potential more general scenarios in which axonal dysfunction may produce signaling to the soma
to activate repair responses. Whether and how local ER dysfunction in the axon influences neuronal UPR responses remains to be determined. In the specific context of axonal injury, the UPR response ABT-199 research buy Selleckchem Cilengitide appears to mainly have a detrimental outcome. Why the activation of XBP1 splicing is limited, compared to the robust upregulation of CHOP, is unclear; the authors speculate that this may be due to limited amounts of XBP1 mRNA in the axon itself. Alternatively, local splicing may be inefficient, or the retrograde signal may not effectively recruit the IRE-XBP1 pathway. Furthermore, since both
IRE1 and PERK are intrinsic ER membrane proteins, activation in specific subdomains of the ER may play a role (Figure 1). Clearly, our understanding of these pathways in neurons, including the ATF6 pathway that was not considered in this context, is still incomplete. Their investigation in future studies might yield valuable information to translate progress in neuronal cell biology into more effective strategies for neuroprotection. The
mechanisms underlying the opposite effects of CHOP and XBP1 pathways on neuronal survival also remain to be investigated. The CHOP cascade appears to have a critical role in UPR-dependent cell death in neurons (Galehdar et al., 2010), and nonneuronal cells (Puthalakath et al., 2007), largely due to the induction of BH3-only pro-apoptotic proteins Thiamine-diphosphate kinase such as bim and puma. By contrast, the neuroprotective mechanisms set in motions by XBP1 are less clearly understood: the induction of ER chaperons (such as BiP, Grp94, and Grp58) and the stimulation of ER biogenesis (Walter and Ron, 2011) may be important, but further targets of XBP1, possibly including autophagy pathways (see e.g., Hetz et al., 2009) may also have a role. This study clearly suggests that XBP1 is a valuable neuroprotective target to counteract neuronal losses and blindness upon axonal injuries. But the lessons learned through these axonal damage studies might have implications beyond injury-related cell death and neural repair. Thus, early UPR upregulation is a hallmark of neurodegenerative diseases (for a review, see Saxena and Caroni, 2011). CHOP and XBP1 upregulation has been described in Alzheimer’s disease, Parkinson Disease, ALS models (Kikuchi et al., 2006), and photoreceptors expressing mutant rhodopsin (Ryoo et al.