Genetic Screening of Haploid Neural Stem Cells Reveals that Nfkbia and Atp2b4 are Key Regulators of Oxidative Stress in Neural Precursors

Neurological diseases are expected to become the leading cause of death in the next decade. Although little is known about it, the interaction between oxidative stress and inflammation is harmful to the nervous system. To find an advanced tool for neural genetics, mouse haploid neural stem cells (haNSCs) from the somite of chimeric mouse embryos at E8.5 is established. The haNSCs present a haploid neural progenitor identity for long-term culture, promising to robustly differentiate into neural subtypes and being able to form cerebral organoids efficiently. Thereafter, haNSC mutants via a high-throughput approach and screened targets of oxidative stress is generated using the specific mutant library. Deletion of Nfkbia (the top hit among the insertion mutants) reduces damage from reactive oxygen species (ROS) in NSCs exposed to H2O2. Transcriptome analysis revealed that Atp2b4 is upregulated significantly in Nfkbia-null NSCs and is probably responsible for the observed resistance. Additionally, overexpression of Atp2b4 itself can increase the survival of NSCs in the presence of H2O2, suggesting that Atp2b4 is closely involved in this resistance. Herein, a powerful haploid system is presented to study functional genetics in neural lineages, shedding light on the screening of critical genes and drugs for neurological diseases.