ArticleThe Journal of neuroscience : the official journal of the Society for Neuroscience2012
Survival motor neuron protein in motor neurons determines synaptic integrity in spinal muscular atrophy.
Article in The Journal of neuroscience : the official journal of the Society for Neuroscience, 2012. The graph could read no effect estimate from its abstract, so it casts no vote on the map. Cited by 124 papers.
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Who cites it
124 citing papers in PubMed.
- Age-dependent SMN expression in disease-relevant tissue and implications for SMA treatment.The Journal of clinical investigation · 2019Trial
- A Comparative Study of SMN Protein and mRNA in Blood and Fibroblasts in Patients with Spinal Muscular Atrophy and Healthy Controls.PloS one · 2016Trial
- Targeted knockdown of Smn in muscle stem cells induces non-cell autonomous loss of motor neurons.Brain : a journal of neurology · 2026Article
- Survival Motor Neuron Protein Requirement-Supply Mismatch in Spinal Muscular Atrophy: A Conceptual Framework.Advances in therapy · 2026Review
- Multi-Omics Landscape of Paraspinal Muscles in Spinal Muscular Atrophy With Scoliosis.Journal of cellular and molecular medicine · 2026Article
- A p53-ΔNp73 signaling axis drives selective motor neuron degeneration in spinal muscular atrophy.bioRxiv : the preprint server for biology · 2026Article
- Long-term comparative analysis of AAV9-mediated gene replacement therapies for spinal muscular atrophy in mice.Nature communications · 2026Article
- Haloperidol induces neuroprotection and enhances neuromuscular function in both murine and human models of spinal muscular atrophy.Experimental & molecular medicine · 2026Article
- Astrocyte targeted SMN1 gene therapy and forskolin application improves astrocyte filopodia actin defects and motor neuron synaptic dysfunction in human SMA disease pathology.bioRxiv : the preprint server for biology · 2026Article
- Cerebellar pathology contributes to neurodevelopmental deficits in spinal muscular atrophy.Brain : a journal of neurology · 2026Article
- Lymphoid Organ Architecture and Hematopoiesis Disruption in Spinal Muscular Atrophy: Therapeutic Rescue by SMN Restoration.International journal of molecular sciences · 2026Article
- Synaptic Plasticity in Neurodegenerative Diseases: Impact of Exercise as Promising Therapeutic Tool.Cells · 2026Review
- Systemic mRNA-LNP administration in fetuses improves survival in a mouse model of spinal muscular atrophy.Molecular therapy. Methods & clinical development · 2025Article
- Cerebellar defects are a primary pathology in mouse models of spinal muscular atrophy.Brain pathology (Zurich, Switzerland) · 2025Article
- TheiScience · 2025Article
- Glial Cells in Spinal Muscular Atrophy: Speculations on Non-Cell-Autonomous Mechanisms and Therapeutic Implications.Neurology international · 2025Review
- Quantitative synthetic MRI reveals grey matter abnormalities in patients with spinal muscular atrophy types 2 and 3.Quantitative imaging in medicine and surgery · 2025Article
- Motor pool selectivity of neuromuscular degeneration in type I spinal muscular atrophy is conserved between human and mouse.Human molecular genetics · 2025Article
- IL-1ra and CCL5, but not IL-10, are promising targets for treating SMA astrocyte-driven pathology.Molecular therapy : the journal of the American Society of Gene Therapy · 2025Article
- Preemptive dual therapy for children at risk for infantile-onset spinal muscular atrophy.Annals of clinical and translational neurology · 2024Article
64 more citing papers are in PubMed but not listed here.
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13 authors.
Funding
Abstract
The inherited motor neuron disease spinal muscular atrophy (SMA) is caused by deficient expression of survival motor neuron (SMN) protein and results in severe muscle weakness. In SMA mice, synaptic dysfunction of both neuromuscular junctions (NMJs) and central sensorimotor synapses precedes motor neuron cell death. To address whether this synaptic dysfunction is due to SMN deficiency in motor neurons, muscle, or both, we generated three lines of conditional SMA mice with tissue-specific increases in SMN expression. All three lines of mice showed increased survival, weights, and improved motor behavior. While increased SMN expression in motor neurons prevented synaptic dysfunction at the NMJ and restored motor neuron somal synapses, increased SMN expression in muscle did not affect synaptic function although it did improve myofiber size. Together these data indicate that both peripheral and central synaptic integrity are dependent on motor neurons in SMA, but SMN may have variable roles in the maintenance of these different synapses. At the NMJ, it functions at the presynaptic terminal in a cell-autonomous fashion, but may be necessary for retrograde trophic signaling to presynaptic inputs onto motor neurons. Importantly, SMN also appears to function in muscle growth and/or maintenance independent of motor neurons. Our data suggest that SMN plays distinct roles in muscle, NMJs, and motor neuron somal synapses and that restored function of SMN at all three sites will be necessary for full recovery of muscle power.
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