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Wakimoto, Hiroko

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Wakimoto

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Hiroko

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Wakimoto, Hiroko
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    A Broad Phenotypic Screen Identifies Novel Phenotypes Driven by a Single Mutant Allele in Huntington’s Disease CAG Knock-In Mice
    (Public Library of Science, 2013) Hölter, Sabine M.; Stromberg, Mary; Kovalenko, Marina; Garrett, Lillian; Glasl, Lisa; Lopez, Edith; Guide, Jolene; Götz, Alexander; Hans, Wolfgang; Becker, Lore; Rathkolb, Birgit; Rozman, Jan; Schrewed, Anja; Klingenspor, Martin; Klopstock, Thomas; Schulz, Holger; Wolf, Eckhard; Wursta, Wolfgang; Gillis, Tammy; Wakimoto, Hiroko; Seidman, Jonathan; MacDonald, Marcy; Cotman, Susan; Gailus-Durner, Valérie; Fuchs, Helmut; de Angelis, Martin Hrabě; Lee, Jong-Min; Wheeler, Vanessa
    Huntington’s disease (HD) is an autosomal dominant neurodegenerative disorder caused by the expansion of a CAG trinucleotide repeat in the HTT gene encoding huntingtin. The disease has an insidious course, typically progressing over 10-15 years until death. Currently there is no effective disease-modifying therapy. To better understand the HD pathogenic process we have developed genetic HTT CAG knock-in mouse models that accurately recapitulate the HD mutation in man. Here, we describe results of a broad, standardized phenotypic screen in 10-46 week old heterozygous HdhQ111 knock-in mice, probing a wide range of physiological systems. The results of this screen revealed a number of behavioral abnormalities in HdhQ111/+ mice that include hypoactivity, decreased anxiety, motor learning and coordination deficits, and impaired olfactory discrimination. The screen also provided evidence supporting subtle cardiovascular, lung, and plasma metabolite alterations. Importantly, our results reveal that a single mutant HTT allele in the mouse is sufficient to elicit multiple phenotypic abnormalities, consistent with a dominant disease process in patients. These data provide a starting point for further investigation of several organ systems in HD, for the dissection of underlying pathogenic mechanisms and for the identification of reliable phenotypic endpoints for therapeutic testing.
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    De novo mutations in histone modifying genes in congenital heart disease
    (2013) Zaidi, Samir; Choi, Murim; Wakimoto, Hiroko; Ma, Lijiang; Jiang, Jianming; Overton, John D.; Romano-Adesman, Angela; Bjornson, Robert D.; Breitbart, Roger E.; Brown, Kerry K.; Carriero, Nicholas J.; Cheung, Yee Him; Deanfield, John; DePalma, Steven; Fakhro, Khalid A.; Glessner, Joseph; Hakonarson, Hakon; Italia, Michael; Kaltman, Jonathan R.; Kaski, Juan; Kim, Richard; Kline, Jennie K.; Lee, Teresa; Leipzig, Jeremy; Lopez, Alexander; Mane, Shrikant M.; Mitchell, Laura E.; Newburger, Jane W.; Parfenov, Michael; Pe'er, Itsik; Porter, George; Roberts, Amy; Sachidanandam, Ravi; Sanders, Stephan J.; Seiden, Howard S.; State, Mathew W.; Subramanian, Sailakshmi; Tikhonova, Irina R.; Wang, Wei; Warburton, Dorothy; White, Peter S.; Williams, Ismee A.; Zhao, Hongyu; Seidman, Jonathan; Brueckner, Martina; Chung, Wendy K.; Gelb, Bruce D.; Goldmuntz, Elizabeth; Seidman, Christine; Lifton, Richard P.
    Congenital heart disease (CHD) is the most frequent birth defect, affecting 0.8% of live births1. Many cases occur sporadically and impair reproductive fitness, suggesting a role for de novo mutations. By analysis of exome sequencing of parent-offspring trios, we compared the incidence of de novo mutations in 362 severe CHD cases and 264 controls. CHD cases showed a significant excess of protein-altering de novo mutations in genes expressed in the developing heart, with an odds ratio of 7.5 for damaging mutations. Similar odds ratios were seen across major classes of severe CHD. We found a marked excess of de novo mutations in genes involved in production, removal or reading of H3K4 methylation (H3K4me), or ubiquitination of H2BK120, which is required for H3K4 methylation2–4. There were also two de novo mutations in SMAD2; SMAD2 signaling in the embryonic left-right organizer induces demethylation of H3K27me5. H3K4me and H3K27me mark `poised' promoters and enhancers that regulate expression of key developmental genes6. These findings implicate de novo point mutations in several hundred genes that collectively contribute to ~10% of severe CHD.
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    Cardiovascular homeostasis dependence on MICU2, a regulatory subunit of the mitochondrial calcium uniporter
    (National Academy of Sciences, 2017) Bick, Alexander; Wakimoto, Hiroko; Kamer, Kimberli; Sancak, Yasemin; Goldberger, Olga; Axelsson, Anna; DeLaughter, Daniel; Gorham, Joshua; Mootha, Vamsi; Seidman, J. G.; Seidman, Christine
    Comparative analyses of transcriptional profiles from humans and mice with cardiovascular pathologies revealed consistently elevated expression of MICU2, a regulatory subunit of the mitochondrial calcium uniporter complex. To determine if MICU2 expression was cardioprotective, we produced and characterized Micu2−/− mice. Mutant mice had left atrial enlargement and Micu2−/− cardiomyocytes had delayed sarcomere relaxation and cytosolic calcium reuptake kinetics, indicating diastolic dysfunction. RNA sequencing (RNA-seq) of Micu2−/− ventricular tissues revealed markedly reduced transcripts encoding the apelin receptor (Micu2−/− vs. wild type, P = 7.8 × 10−40), which suppresses angiotensin II receptor signaling via allosteric transinhibition. We found that Micu2−/− and wild-type mice had comparable basal blood pressures and elevated responses to angiotensin II infusion, but that Micu2−/− mice exhibited systolic dysfunction and 30% lethality from abdominal aortic rupture. Aneurysms and rupture did not occur with norepinephrine-induced hypertension. Aortic tissue from Micu2−/− mice had increased expression of extracellular matrix remodeling genes, while single-cell RNA-seq analyses showed increased expression of genes related to reactive oxygen species, inflammation, and proliferation in fibroblast and smooth muscle cells. We concluded that Micu2−/− mice recapitulate features of diastolic heart disease and define previously unappreciated roles for Micu2 in regulating angiotensin II-mediated hypertensive responses that are critical in protecting the abdominal aorta from injury.
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    Loss of RNA expression and allele-specific expression associated with congenital heart disease
    (Nature Publishing Group, 2016) McKean, David; Homsy, Jason; Wakimoto, Hiroko; Patel, Neil; Gorham, Joshua; DePalma, Steven; Ware, James S.; Zaidi, Samir; Ma, Wenji; Patel, Nihir; Lifton, Richard P.; Chung, Wendy K.; Kim, Richard; Shen, Yufeng; Brueckner, Martina; Goldmuntz, Elizabeth; Sharp, Andrew J.; Seidman, Christine; Gelb, Bruce D.; Seidman, J. G.
    Congenital heart disease (CHD), a prevalent birth defect occurring in 1% of newborns, likely results from aberrant expression of cardiac developmental genes. Mutations in a variety of cardiac transcription factors, developmental signalling molecules and molecules that modify chromatin cause at least 20% of disease, but most CHD remains unexplained. We employ RNAseq analyses to assess allele-specific expression (ASE) and biallelic loss-of-expression (LOE) in 172 tissue samples from 144 surgically repaired CHD subjects. Here we show that only 5% of known imprinted genes with paternal allele silencing are monoallelic versus 56% with paternal allele expression—this cardiac-specific phenomenon seems unrelated to CHD. Further, compared with control subjects, CHD subjects have a significant burden of both LOE genes and ASE events associated with altered gene expression. These studies identify FGFBP2, LBH, RBFOX2, SGSM1 and ZBTB16 as candidate CHD genes because of significantly altered transcriptional expression.
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    TWIST1 Promotes Invasion Through Mesenchymal Change in Human Glioblastoma
    (BioMed Central, 2010) Mikheeva, Svetlana A; Mikheev, Andrei M; Petit, Audrey; Oxford, Robert G; Khorasani, Leila; Maxwell, John-Patrick; Glackin, Carlotta A; González-Herrero, Inés; Sánchez-García, Isidro; Silber, John R; Horner, Philip J; Rostomily, Robert C; Beyer, Richard; Wakimoto, Hiroko
    Background: Tumor cell invasion into adjacent normal brain is a mesenchymal feature of GBM and a major factor contributing to their dismal outcomes. Therefore, better understandings of mechanisms that promote mesenchymal change in GBM are of great clinical importance to address invasion. We previously showed that the bHLH transcription factor TWIST1 which orchestrates carcinoma metastasis through an epithelial mesenchymal transition (EMT) is upregulated in GBM and promotes invasion of the SF767 GBM cell line in vitro. Results: To further define TWIST1 functions in GBM we tested the impact of TWIST1 over-expression on invasion in vivo and its impact on gene expression. We found that TWIST1 significantly increased SNB19 and T98G cell line invasion in orthotopic xenotransplants and increased expression of genes in functional categories associated with adhesion, extracellular matrix proteins, cell motility and locomotion, cell migration and actin cytoskeleton organization. Consistent with this TWIST1 reduced cell aggregation, promoted actin cytoskeletal re-organization and enhanced migration and adhesion to fibronectin substrates. Individual genes upregulated by TWIST1 known to promote EMT and/or GBM invasion included SNAI2, MMP2, HGF, FAP and FN1. Distinct from carcinoma EMT, TWIST1 did not generate an E- to N-cadherin "switch" in GBM cell lines. The clinical relevance of putative TWIST target genes SNAI2 and fibroblast activation protein alpha (FAP) identified in vitro was confirmed by their highly correlated expression with TWIST1 in 39 human tumors. The potential therapeutic importance of inhibiting TWIST1 was also shown through a decrease in cell invasion in vitro and growth of GBM stem cells. Conclusions: Together these studies demonstrated that TWIST1 enhances GBM invasion in concert with mesenchymal change not involving the canonical cadherin switch of carcinoma EMT. Given the recent recognition that mesenchymal change in GBMs is associated with increased malignancy, these findings support the potential therapeutic importance of strategies to subvert TWIST1-mediated mesenchymal change.
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    Dissecting Spatio-Temporal Protein Networks Driving Human Heart Development and Related Disorders
    (Nature Publishing Group, 2010) Lage, Kasper; Møllgård, Kjeld; Greenway, Steven; Workman, Christopher T; Bendsen, Eske; Hansen, Niclas T; Rigina, Olga; Roque, Francisco S; Wiese, Cornelia; Christoffels, Vincent M; Tommerup, Niels; Brunak, Søren; Larsen, Lars A; Wakimoto, Hiroko; Gorham, Joshua; Roberts, Amy; Smoot, Leslie; Pu, William; Donahoe, Patricia; Seidman, Christine; Seidman, Jonathan
    Aberrant organ development is associated with a wide spectrum of disorders, from schizophrenia to congenital heart disease, but systems-level insight into the underlying processes is very limited. Using heart morphogenesis as general model for dissecting the functional architecture of organ development, we combined detailed phenotype information from deleterious mutations in 255 genes with high-confidence experimental interactome data, and coupled the results to thorough experimental validation. Hereby, we made the first systematic analysis of spatio-temporal protein networks driving many stages of a developing organ identifying several novel signaling modules. Our results show that organ development relies on surprisingly few, extensively recycled, protein modules that integrate into complex higher-order networks. This design allows the formation of a complicated organ using simple building blocks, and suggests how mutations in the same genes can lead to diverse phenotypes. We observe a striking temporal correlation between organ complexity and the number of discrete functional modules coordinating morphogenesis. Our analysis elucidates the organization and composition of spatio-temporal protein networks that drive the formation of organs, which in the future may lay the foundation of novel approaches in treatments, diagnostics, and regenerative medicine.
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    IL-11 Is a Crucial Determinant of Cardiovascular Fibrosis
    (Springer Science and Business Media LLC, 2017-12-07) Schafer, Sebastian; Viswanathan, Sivakumar; Widjaja, Anissa A.; Lim, Wei-Wen; Moreno-Moral, Aida; DeLaughter, Daniel; Ng, Benjamin; Patone, Giannino; Chow, Kingsley; Khin, Ester; Tan, Jessie; Chothani, Sonia P.; Ye, Lei; Rackham, Owen J. L.; Ko, Nicole S. J.; Sahib, Norliza E.; Pua, Chee Jian; Zhen, Nicole T. G.; Xie, Chen; Wang, Mao; Maatz, Henrike; Lim, Shiqi; Saar, Kathrin; Blachut, Susanne; Petretto, Enrico; Schmidt, Sabine; Putoczki, Tracy; Guimarães-Camboa, Nuno; Wakimoto, Hiroko; van Heesch, Sebastiaan; Sigmundsson, Kristmundur; Lim, See L.; Soon, Jia L.; Chao, Victor T. T.; Chua, Yeow L.; Tan, Teing E.; Evans, Sylvia M.; Loh, Yee J.; Jamal, Muhammad H.; Ong, Kim K.; Chua, Kim C.; Ong, Boon-Hean; Chakaramakkil, Mathew J.; Seidman, Jonathan; Seidman, Christine; Hubner, Norbert; Sin, Kenny Y. K.; Cook, Stuart A.
    Fibrosis is a common pathology in cardiovascular disease1. In the heart, fibrosis causes mechanical and electrical dysfunction1,2 and in the kidney, it predicts the onset of renal failure3. Transforming growth factor β1 (TGFβ1) is the principal pro-fibrotic factor4,5, but its inhibition is associated with side effects due to its pleiotropic roles6,7. We hypothesized that downstream effectors of TGFβ1 in fibroblasts could be attractive therapeutic targets and lack upstream toxicity. Here we show, using integrated imaging–genomics analyses of primary human fibroblasts, that upregulation of interleukin-11 (IL-11) is the dominant transcriptional response to TGFβ1 exposure and required for its pro-fibrotic effect. IL-11 and its receptor (IL11RA) are expressed specifically in fibroblasts, in which they drive non-canonical, ERK-dependent autocrine signalling that is required for fibrogenic protein synthesis. In mice, fibroblast-specific Il11 transgene expression or Il-11 injection causes heart and kidney fibrosis and organ failure, whereas genetic deletion of Il11ra1 protects against disease. Therefore, inhibition of IL-11 prevents fibroblast activation across organs and species in response to a range of important pro-fibrotic stimuli. These results reveal a central role of IL-11 in fibrosis and we propose that inhibition of IL-11 is a potential therapeutic strategy to treat fibrotic diseases.