ER Stress-induced Aberrant Neuronal Maturation and Neurodevelopmental Disorders

Neurodevelopmental disorders, which include autism spectrum disorder, are congenital impairments in the growth and development of the central nervous system. They are mainly accentuated during infancy and childhood. Autism spectrum disorder may be caused by environmental factors, genomic imprinting of chromosome 15q11-q13 regions, and gene defects such as those in genes encoding neurexin and neuroligin, which are involved in synaptogenesis and synaptic signaling. However, regardless of the many reports on neurodevelopmental disorders, the pathogenic mechanism and treatment of neurodevelopmental disorders remain unclear. Conversely, it has been reported that endoplasmic reticulum (ER) stress is involved in neurodegenerative diseases. ER stress is increased by environmental factors such as alcohol consumption and smoking. Here we show the recent results on ER stress-induced neurodevelopmental disorders. ER stress led to a decrease in the mRNA levels of the proneural factors Hes1/5 and Pax6, which maintain an undifferentiated state of the neural cells. This stress also led to a decrease in nestin expression and an increase in beta-III tubulin expression. In addition, dendrite length was shortened by ER stress in microtubule-associated protein-2 (MAP-2) positive cells. However, the ubiquitin ligase HRD1 expression was increased by ER stress. By suppressing HRD1 expression, the ER stress-induced decrease in nestin and MAP-2 expression and increase in beta-III tubulin returned to control levels. Therefore, we suggest that ER stress induces abnormalities in neuronal differentiation and maturation via HRD1 expression. These results suggest that targeting ER stress may facilitate quicker approaches toward the prevention and treatment of neurodevelopmental disorders.