Sacsin'in glial ara filament organizasyonu ve inflamatuar sinyal yolağındaki rolünün erken dönem zebrafish gelişiminde araştırılması

Autosomal recessive spastic ataxia of Charlevoix-Saguenay (ARSACS) is a rare neurodegenerative disorder characterized by early-onset ataxia, spasticity, and peripheral neuropathy. While ARSACS has been primarily studied in neurons, recent findings implicate glial cells in disease pathology. Sacsin, the protein encoded by the SACS gene and mutated in ARSACS, is shown to be expressed in both astrocytes and microglia while playing key roles in cytoskeletal integrity and cellular stress signaling. When adding the growing recognition of ARSACS as a disorder with neurodevelopmental components, investigating glial contributions to the disease pathogenesis during early development is becoming a requirement. This study aimed to investigate the impact of sacsin deletion on developmental and glial markers in zebrafish embryos and larvae, using a sacs-null mutant model of ARSACS. To this end, we quantified gene and protein expression profiles of sacsin and key glial markers across developmental time points (60–180 hours post-fertilization, hpf). RT-qPCR was used to assess the expression of sacs, s100b (astrocytic inflammatory marker), and aif1l (microglial inflammatory marker IBA-1), while Western blotting was used to examine protein levels of STAT3 (developmental marker), vimentin (early glial intermediate filament marker), and GFAP (astrocytic intermediate filament marker). Zebrafish sacs-null mutants showed a significant decrease in sacs mRNA expression only at 180 hpf, while the lack of earlier differences is possibly due to the stable mutant transcripts. Among glial inflammatory markers, s100b expression was significantly upregulated in sacs-null mutants; however, aif1l showed no genotype-dependent changes, reflecting a compensatory response of astrocytes that may even occur earlier than the microglial response. Additionally, no significant correlations were found between sacs and these glial inflammatory markers, indicating selective, possibly indirect, molecular interactions. Vimentin protein expression was significantly higher in sacs-null mutants, supporting the notion that sacsin loss disrupts intermediate filament dynamics, not just structurally, but in quantity. However, GFAP expression did not differ between genotypes, unlike the literature based on cellular imaging, suggesting the necessity of anatomical tissue-specific assays. Together, these results demonstrate that sacsin loss leads to selective and temporally defined alterations in glial development, particularly affecting cytoskeletal and inflammatory markers. The zebrafish model effectively captured these dynamics, validating its utility for studying glial contributions to early-onset neurodegenerative diseases. In conclusion, this study advances our understanding of glial dysregulation in ARSACS and underscores the importance of considering non-neuronal mechanisms in early disease progression. In future studies, tissue-specific analyses based on the imaging of glial cells in the central nervous system will be of critical importance for uncovering the molecular foundations of glial involvement in ARSACS and related disorders.