Molecular basis of the motheaten phenotype

Mice homozygous for the autosomal recessive motheaten (me) or the allelic viable motheaten (mev) mutations manifest a unique immunological disease associated with severe immunodeficiency and autoimmunity. Over the past few years, our group has used the motheaten mouse as a model system for elucidating the genetic and cellular events that contribute to expression of normal hematopoietic and immune cell function. To this end, we have sought to identify the gene responsible for the motheaten phenotype. In our initial studies, our general approach involved the use of subtractive hybridization to identify genes that were differentially expressed in the mutant versus control mice and which might thus provide clues as to the primary gene defect. Using this approach, we showed that genes encoding stefin A cysteine proteinase inhibitors are markedly overexpressed in bone marrow cells of me and mev mice compared to bone marrow cells of normal congenic animals. However, the motheaten mutation has been mapped to mouse choromosome 6 while the stefin A gene cluster was localized to mouse chromosome 16. Stefin gene therefore does not represent the primary gene defect. Our second strategy aimed at identifying the primary gene defect underlying the motheaten phenotype was prompted by the recent localization of a protein tyrosine phosphatase gene to human chromosome 12p12-p13, a region containing a large segment of homology with the region on mouse chromosome 6 where the motheaten locus has been mapped. We have shown that abnormal Hcph transcripts are expressed in me and mev bone marrow cells and that the generation of these altered transcripts is due to RNA splicing defects caused by single basepair changes in the Hcph genes of the mutant mice. These mutant mice thus provide a valuable model system for elucidating the biological roles of HCP in vivo and defining the mechanism whereby defective function of a hematopoietic cell phosphatase leads to expression of the motheaten phenotype of severe immunodeficiency and systemic autoimmunity.