Drug-induced Behavioral Signature Analysis (DBSA), is a machine learning (ML) method for in silico screening of compounds, inspired by analytical methods quantifying gene enrichment in genomic analyses. When applied to behavioral data it can identify drugs that can potentially reverse in vivo behavioral symptoms in animal models of human disease and suggest new hypotheses for drug discovery and repurposing. We present a proof-of-concept study aiming to assess Drug-induced Behavioral Signature Analysis (DBSA) as a systematic approach for drug discovery for rare disorders. We applied Drug-induced Behavioral Signature Analysis to high-content behavioral data obtained with SmartCube ® , an automated in vivo phenotyping platform. The therapeutic potential of several dozen approved drugs was assessed for phenotypic reversal of the behavioral profile of a Huntington’s Disease (HD) murine model, the Q175 heterozygous knock-in mice. The in silico Drug-induced Behavioral Signature Analysis predictions were enriched for drugs known to be effective in the symptomatic treatment of Huntington’s Disease, including bupropion, modafinil, methylphenidate, and several SSRIs, as well as the atypical antidepressant tianeptine. To validate the method, we tested acute and chronic effects of tianeptine (20 mg/kg , i. p. ) in vivo , using Q175 mice and wild type controls. In both experiments, tianeptine significantly rescued the behavioral phenotype assessed with the SmartCube ® platform. Our target-agnostic method thus showed promise for identification of symptomatic relief treatments for rare disorders, providing an alternative method for hypothesis generation and drug discovery for disorders with huge disease burden and unmet medical needs.

We have developed an inducible Huntington's disease (HD) mouse model that allows temporal control of whole-body allele-specific mutant huntingtin (mHtt) expression. We asked whether moderate global lowering of mHtt (~50%) was sufficient for long-term amelioration of HD-related deficits and, if so, whether early mHtt lowering (before measurable deficits) was required. Both early and late mHtt lowering delayed behavioral dysfunction and mHTT protein aggregation, as measured biochemically. However, long-term follow-up revealed that the benefits, in all mHtt-lowering groups, attenuated by 12 months of age. While early mHtt lowering attenuated cortical and striatal transcriptional dysregulation evaluated at 6 months of age, the benefits diminished by 12 months of age, and late mHtt lowering did not ameliorate striatal transcriptional dysregulation at 12 months of age. Only early mHtt lowering delayed the elevation in cerebrospinal fluid neurofilament light chain that we observed in our model starting at 9 months of age. As small-molecule HTT-lowering therapeutics progress to the clinic, our findings suggest that moderate mHtt lowering allows disease progression to continue, albeit at a slower rate, and could be relevant to the degree of mHTT lowering required to sustain long-term benefits in humans.

Tuberous sclerosis complex (TSC) is a monogenic disorder characterized by hyperactivation of the mTOR signaling pathway and developmental brain malformations leading to intractable epilepsy. Although treatment with the recently approved mTOR inhibitor, everolimus, results in clinically relevant seizure suppression in up to 40% of TSC patients, seizures remain uncontrolled in a large number of cases, underscoring the need to identify novel treatment targets. The MEK-ERK signaling pathway has been found to be aberrantly activated in TSC and inhibition of MEK-ERK activity independently of mTOR rescued neuronal dendrite overgrowth in mice modeling TSC neuropathology. Here, we evaluated the efficacy of MEK-ERK inhibition on seizures in two mouse models of TSC. We found that treatment with the MEK inhibitor PD0325901 (mirdametinib) significantly reduced seizure activity in both TSC mouse models. These findings support inhibiting MEK-ERK activity as a potential alternative strategy to treat seizures in TSC.

Consumer wearables and sensors are a rich source of data about patients' daily disease and symptom burden, particularly in the case of movement disorders like Parkinson's disease (PD). However, interpreting these complex data into so-called digital biomarkers requires complicated analytical approaches, and validating these biomarkers requires sufficient data and unbiased evaluation methods. Here we describe the use of crowdsourcing to specifically evaluate and benchmark features derived from accelerometer and gyroscope data in two different datasets to predict the presence of PD and severity of three PD symptoms: tremor, dyskinesia, and bradykinesia. Forty teams from around the world submitted features, and achieved drastically improved predictive performance for PD status (best AUROC = 0.87), as well as tremor- (best AUPR = 0.75), dyskinesia- (best AUPR = 0.48) and bradykinesia-severity (best AUPR = 0.95).

There is an outstanding need for the availability of objective platforms capable of quantifying sleep in the home setting using Wearable and Home Sensor Devices (WHSDs). To this end, it is important to verify and validate the utility of the WHSDs in the target population. Published studies often lack the rigor on methods to power clinical studies, or how to align and properly stack data from WHSDs.

Mechanistic target of rapamycin (mTOR) regulates cell proliferation, growth and survival, and is activated in cancer and neurological disorders, including epilepsy. The rapamycin derivative ("rapalog") everolimus, which allosterically inhibits the mTOR pathway, is approved for the treatment of partial epilepsy with spontaneous recurrent seizures (SRS) in individuals with tuberous sclerosis complex (TSC). In contrast to the efficacy in TSC, the efficacy of rapalogs on SRS in other types of epilepsy is equivocal. Furthermore, rapalogs only poorly penetrate into the brain and are associated with peripheral adverse effects, which may compromise their therapeutic efficacy. Here we compare the antiseizure efficacy of two novel, brain-permeable ATP-competitive and selective mTORC1/2 inhibitors, PQR620 and PQR626, and the selective dual pan-PI3K/mTORC1/2 inhibitor PQR530 in two mouse models of chronic epilepsy with SRS, the intrahippocampal kainate (IHK) mouse model of acquired temporal lobe epilepsy and Tsc1GFAP CKO mice, a well-characterized mouse model of epilepsy in TSC. During prolonged treatment of IHK mice with rapamycin, everolimus, PQR620, PQR626, or PQR530; only PQR620 exerted a transient antiseizure effect on SRS, at well tolerated doses whereas the other compounds were ineffective. In contrast, all of the examined compounds markedly suppressed SRS in Tsc1GFAP CKO mice during chronic treatment at well tolerated doses. Thus, against our expectation, no clear differences in antiseizure efficacy were found across the three classes of mTOR inhibitors examined in mouse models of genetic and acquired epilepsies. The main advantage of the novel 1,3,5-triazine derivatives is their excellent tolerability compared to rapalogs, which would favor their development as new therapies for TORopathies such as TSC.

Phenotyping mouse model systems of human disease has proven to be a difficult task, with frequent poor inter- and intra-laboratory replicability, particularly in behavioral domains such as social and cognitive function. However, establishing robust animal model systems with strong construct validity is of fundamental importance as they are central tools for understanding disease pathophysiology and developing therapeutics. To complete our studies of mouse model systems relevant to autism spectrum disorder (ASD), we present a replication of the main findings from our two published studies of five genetic mouse model systems of ASD. To assess the intra-laboratory robustness of previous results, we chose the two model systems that showed the greatest phenotypic differences, the Shank3/F and Cntnap2, and repeated assessments of general health, activity and social behavior. We additionally explored all five model systems in the same framework, comparing all results obtained in this three-yearlong effort using informatics techniques to assess commonalities and differences. Our results showed high intra-laboratory replicability of results, even for those with effect sizes that were not particularly large, suggesting that discrepancies in the literature may be dependent on subtle but pivotal differences in testing conditions, housing enrichment, or background strains and less so on the variability of the behavioral phenotypes. The overall informatics analysis suggests that in our behavioral assays we can separate the set of tested mouse model system into two main classes that in some aspects lie on opposite ends of the behavioral spectrum, supporting the view that autism is not a unitary concept.

To expand, analyze and extend published behavioral phenotypes relevant to autism spectrum disorder (ASD), we present a study of three ASD genetic mouse models: Feng’s Shank3 tm2Gfng model, hereafter Shank3/F , Jiang’s Shank3 tm1Yhj model, hereafter Shank3/J , and the Cacna1c deletion model. The Shank3/F and Shank3/J models mimick gene mutations associated with Phelan-Mcdermid syndrome and the Cacna1c model recapitulates the deletion underlying Timothy syndrome. The current study utilizes both standard and novel, computer-vision based behavioral tests, the same methdology used in our previously published companion report on the Cntnap2 null and 16p11.2 deletion models. Overall, some but not all behaviors replicated published findings. Those that replicated, such as social behavior and overgrooming in Shank3 models, also tended to be milder than previous reports. The Shank3/F model, and to a much lesser extent, the Shank3/J and Cacna1c models, showed hypoactivity and a general anxiety-like behavior triggered by external stimuli which pervaded social interactions. We did not detect deficits in a cognitive procedural learning test nor did we observe perseverative behavior in these models. We did, however, find differences in exploratory patterns of Cacna1c mutant mice suggestive of a behavioral effect in a social setting. In addition, Shank3/F but not Shank3/J KO or Cacna1c HET showed differences in sensory-gating. Discrepancies in our current results from previous reports may be dependent on subtle differences in testing conditions, housing enrichment, or background strain. Both positive and negative results from this study will be useful in identifying the most robust and replicable behavioral signatures within and across mouse models of autism. Understanding these phenotypes may shed light of which features to study when screening compounds for potential therapeutic interventions.

Huntington’s Disease (HD) is a progressive neurodegenerative disorder that causes motor, cognitive, and psychiatric symptoms. In these experiments, we tested if operant training at an early age affected adult cognitive deficits in the zQ175 KI Het (zQ175) mouse model of HD. In Experiment 1 we trained zQ175 mice in a fixed-ratio/progressive ratio (FR/PR) task to assay learning and motivational deficits. We found pronounced deficits in response rates and task engagement in naïve adult zQ175 mice (32-33 weeks age), while deficits in zQ175 mice trained from 6-7 weeks age were either absent or less severe. When those mice were re-tested as adults, FR/PR performance deficits were absent or otherwise less severe than deficits observed in naïve adult zQ175 relative to wild type (WT) mice. In Experiment 2, we used a Go/No-go operant task to assess the effects of early cognitive testing on response inhibition deficits in zQ175 mice. We found that zQ175 mice that began testing at 7-8 weeks did not exhibit deficits in Go/No-go testing, but when re-tested at 28-29 weeks age exhibited an initial impairment that diminished with training. These transient deficits were nonetheless mild relative to deficits observed among adult zQ175 mice without prior testing experience. In Experiment 3 we trained mice in a two-choice visual discrimination test to evaluate cognitive flexibility. As in prior experiments, we found performance deficits were mild or absent in mice that started training at 6-9 weeks of age, while deficits in naive mice exposed to training at 28-29 weeks were severe. Re-testing mice at 28-29 weeks age, were previously trained starting at 6-9 weeks, revealed that deficits in learning and cognitive flexibility were absent or reduced relative to effects observed in naive adults. In Experiment 4, we tested working memory deficits with a delayed non-match to position (DNMTP) test. Mice with prior experience exhibited mild working memory deficits, with males zQ175 exhibiting no deficits, and females performing significantly worse than WT mice at a single delay interval, whereas naive zQ175 exhibited severe delay-dependent deficits at all intervals exceeding 1 s. In sum, these experiments indicate that CAG-dependent impairments in motivation, motor control,

Background The expanded CAG repeat in the Huntington’s disease (HD) gene HTT is the major contributor to disease onset. The repeat also expands progressively in somatic cells, particularly in medium-spiny striatal neurons. Human and mouse genetic studies strongly support somatic expansion as disease modifier, with important implications for developing novel disease-modifying therapies. Aim To develop HD knock-in mice to gain further insight into the role of somatic CAG expansion on phenotypic expression. Methods/techniques We have generated HD knock-in mice harbouring either pure CAG tracts (HttCAG45, HttCAG80, HttCAG105) or CAG tracts interrupted with CAA residues (Htt[CAGCAACAGCAACAA]9, Htt[CAGCAACAGCAACAA]16, Htt[CAGCAACAGCAACAA]21), with pairs of mice expressing huntingtin with matching glutamine tract lengths. We have analysed somatic expansion, huntingtin expression and performed phenotypic analyses. We examined the effect of repeat interruption on quantitative nuclear huntingtin immunstaining phenotypes in the striatum, and on behaviour using automated, high-throughput PhenoCube®, NeuroCube® and SmartCube® platforms. Results Pure repeat mice exhibit tissue-specific, age- and CAG length-dependent somatic expansion. In contrast, the [CAGCAACAGCAACAA] repeat configuration results in complete repeat stabilisation. Interestingly, repeat interruption also reduces huntingtin mRNA and soluble protein. The results of our phenotypic analyses provide evidence for slowed disease progression in the interrupted repeat mice relative to their pure repeat counterparts. Conclusions These results are consistent with the hypothesis that somatic expansion accelerates pathogenesis. However, additional molecular and phenotypic analyses are needed to tease out the relative contribution of somatic expansion to disease expression. Together, the results from these experiments will provide important insight into the role of somatic expansion in HD, as well as insight into other aspects of disease biology that are dependent upon HTT CAG repeat DNA and/or RNA structure. Importantly, these novel knock-in lines provide valuable tools to dissect mechanisms of HD modifier genes that might act in a manner that is either dependent on or independent of somatic CAG expansion.

Patricia Kabitzke, Daniela Brunner, Dansha He, Pamela A. Fazio, Kimberly Cox, Jane Sutphen, Lucinda Thiede, Emily Sabath, Taleen Hanania, Vadim Alexandrov, Randall Rasmusson, Will Spooren, Anirvan Ghosh, Pamela Feliciano, Barbara Biemans, Marta Benedetti, and Alice Luo Clayton. PsychoGenics, Inc., Tarrytown, NY, USA Department of Psychiatry, Columbia University, New York, NY, USA Department of Physiology and Biophysics, SUNY Buffalo School of Medicine and Biomedical Sciences, Buffalo, NY, USA Roche Pharma Research and Early Development, NORD, Roche Innovation Center, Basel, Switzerland Simons Foundation Autism Research Initiative, New York, NY, USA

We report the synthesis and biological characterization of novel derivatives of 3-[(1-methyl-2(S)-pyrrolidinyl)methoxy]-5-cyclopropylpyridine (4a-f and 5) as potent and highly selective α4β2-nicotinic acetylcholine receptor (nAChR) full or partial agonists. A systematic structure-activity study was carried out on the previously described compound 3b, particularly concerning its (2-methoxyethyl)cyclopropyl side-chain, in an effort to improve its metabolic stability while maintaining receptor selectivity. Compound 4d exhibited very similar subnanomolar binding affinity for α4β2- and α4β2*-nAChRs compared to 3b, and it showed excellent potency in activating high-sensitivity (HS) α4β2-nAChRs with an EC50 value of 8.2 nM. Testing of 4d in the SmartCube assay revealed that the compound has a combined antidepressant plus antipsychotic signature. In the forced swim test at a dose of 30 mg/kg given intraperitoneally, 4d was found to be as efficacious as sertraline, thus providing evidence of the potential use of the compound as an antidepressant. Additional promise for use of 4d in humans comes from pharmacokinetic studies in mice indicating brain penetration, and additional assays show compound stability in the presence of human microsomes and hepatocytes. Thus, 4d has a very favorable preclinical drug profile.

Rapid technological advances for the frequent monitoring of health parameters have raised the intriguing possibility that an individual's genotype could be predicted from phenotypic data alone. Here we used a machine learning approach to analyze the phenotypic effects of polymorphic mutations in a mouse model of Huntington's disease that determine disease presentation and age of onset. The resulting model correlated variation across 3,086 behavioral traits with seven different CAG-repeat lengths in the huntingtin gene (Htt). We selected behavioral signatures for age and CAG-repeat length that most robustly distinguished between mouse lines and validated the model by correctly predicting the repeat length of a blinded mouse line. Sufficient discriminatory power to accurately predict genotype required combined analysis of >200 phenotypic features. Our results suggest that autosomal dominant disease-causing mutations could be predicted through the use of subtle behavioral signatures that emerge in large-scale, combinatorial analyses. Our work provides an open data platform that we now share with the research community to aid efforts focused on understanding the pathways that link behavioral consequences to genetic variation in Huntington's disease.

Neurofibrillary tangles (NFT) are the second hallmark of Alzheimer’s disease (AD) and are well correlated to disturbances in cognition. The rTg4510 mouse, a model of tauopathy, overexpresses P301L mutant human Tau in the forebrain under control of a tetracycline tans-acting element (TET-Off). The mice develop neurobrillary pathology already at an age of 2,5 to 3 months, and show progressive gross brain atrophy and significant neuronal loss in hippocampal structures. The study investigated effects of suppression of transgene expression by doxycycline (Doxy) feeding on complex behavioral readouts and correlation to changes in brain pathology. Feeding of mice with Doxy (200 ppm) started at an age of 2.5 months and was maintained until an age of 6 m. The proprietary Cube technology was used to document spontaneous behavior, gait, motor function, but also social interaction, day/ night activity and cognition. Effects on NFTs and brain atrophy were measured using quantitative histological methods, the influence on brain inflammation markers was examined using real time PCR. Transgene suppression over 2,5 months is decreasing tau expression significantly, resultíng in normalization of T-maze performance, but also modulation of practically all disturbed behavioral features that were investigated using SmartCube, NeuroCube and PhenoCube, including motor function, rearing, hyperactivity and social behavior. Beside known effects on brain pathology, Doxy normalizes expression of different pro-inflammatory markers in the mouse brain, which could be in connection to progressive brain atrophy. The data show that exposure to Doxy results in at least a partial reversal of the deficits in the rTG4510mice which were recorded using unique, high-through-put behavioral methods, which correlates to a significant decrease in markers of neuro-inflammation and expected reduction of NFT pathology, indicating that abnormally processed tau protein is essential for these disturbances. Shutting down transgene expression by Doxy is a useful benchmarking for preclinical treatment trials for drugs addressing tau pathology.

These guidelines follow the recommendation of a number of external bodies to regulate the use of animals in research. They can be used both for transparency in publication, and in this sense they extend what is being requested by journals, or for regulatory or funding institutions, to request information prior, during, or after funding, and to ensure adherence to regulations. This checklist focuses on the use of rodents in research. Other species (such as marine mammals, primates, or invertebrates) will be covered in future separated checklists. This checklist is based on and extends the following guidelines: Animals in Research Ethical Guidelines, Guidance for the Description of Animal Research in Scientific Publications, Animals Welfare Act, and ARRIVE guidelines.

The causal contribution of glial pathology to Huntington disease (HD) has not been heavily explored. To define the contribution of glia to HD, we established human HD glial chimeras by neonatally engrafting immunodeficient mice with mutant huntingtin (mHTT)-expressing human glial progenitor cells (hGPCs), derived from either human embryonic stem cells or mHTT-transduced fetal hGPCs. Here we show that mHTT glia can impart disease phenotype to normal mice, since mice engrafted intrastriatally with mHTT hGPCs exhibit worse motor performance than controls, and striatal neurons in mHTT glial chimeras are hyperexcitable. Conversely, normal glia can ameliorate disease phenotype in transgenic HD mice, as striatal transplantation of normal glia rescues aspects of electrophysiological and behavioural phenotype, restores interstitial potassium homeostasis, slows disease progression and extends survival in R6/2 HD mice. These observations suggest a causal role for glia in HD, and further suggest a cell-based strategy for disease amelioration in this disorder.

Tg2576 mice are one of the standard models for AD research. The APP/PS1 mice are produced by cross-breeding them with PS1 tg mice. PS1 mutation changes processing of APP, increasing the proportion of pro-aggregatory ABeta42, accelerating formation of plaque pathology and functional deficits. It is first time that both models were compared using proprietary, sensitive behavioral tests that may have the capability to increase predictive drug testing in AD animals models. It was of interest to explore to what extent differences in behavioral performance between both mouse lines is reflected by differences in AD-like brain pathology. This is important also for interpretation of results from treatment trials. Female 13 and 52 weeks old tg2576 and APP/PS1 mice were investigated using SmartCube (spontaneous behavior), NeuroCube (Measurement of gait and motor function) and the PhenoCube (social interaction, day/ night activity and cognition) Systems. At the end of the experiments mice brains were investigated for differences in plaque pathology, astro-glioses and micro-glia activation using quantitative immunohistochemistry. In all behavioral examinations was a clear difference to age matched wt-controls which increased with age. Differences between the two tg-mouse lines are smaller than the distinction from the controls. In general APP/PS1 mice perform worse than the tg 2576 mice, except in the investigation of social interaction, where tg 2576 mice progress with increased interaction, but the phenotype of the APPPS1 mice is closer to normal situation with increasing age. Detailed immune-histochemical examination is trying to connect this to differences in brain pathology. The data show that also in this new, very detailed behavioral tests there is a clear distinction between the two genotypes, which may relate mainly to differences in APP processing due to the PS1 mutation. The relationship between behavior and findings in brain IHC suggest also the importance of choosing the right animal model for efficacy testing.