Dyrk1A deficiency is linked to various neurodevelopmental disorders, including developmental delays, intellectual disability (ID) and autism spectrum disorders (ASD). Haploinsufficiency of Dyrk1a in mice reportedly leads to ASD-related phenotypes. However, the key pathological mechanisms remain unclear and human DYRK1A mutations remain uncharacterized in mice. Here, we generated and studied Dyrk1a-knockin mice carrying a human ASD patient mutation (Ile48LysfsX2; Dyrk1a-I48K mice). These mice display severe microcephaly, social and cognitive deficits, dendritic shrinkage, excitatory synaptic deficits, and altered phospho-proteomic patterns enriched for multiple signaling pathways and synaptic proteins. Early chronic lithium treatment of newborn mutant mice rescues the brain volume, behavior, dendritic, synaptic, and signaling/synapse phospho-proteomic phenotypes at juvenile and adult stages. These results suggest that signaling/synaptic alterations contribute to the phenotypic alterations seen in Dyrk1a-I48K mice, and that early correction of these alterations by lithium treatment has long-lasting effects in preventing juvenile and adult-stage phenotypes.
Journal article
2025-06-01T00:00:00+00:00
30
2584 - 2596
12
Animals, Protein-Tyrosine Kinases, Dyrk Kinases, Autism Spectrum Disorder, Protein Serine-Threonine Kinases, Mice, Phenotype, Disease Models, Animal, Synapses, Neurons, Lithium, Humans, Mice, Transgenic, Brain, Gene Knock-In Techniques, Mutation, Behavior, Animal, Male, Signal Transduction, Microcephaly