Abstract
Transposable elements (TEs) are mobile genetic elements that constitute on average 45% of mammalian genomes. Their presence and activity in genomes represent a major source of genetic variability. While this is an important driver of genome evolution, TEs can also have deleterious effects on their hosts. A growing number of studies have focused on the role of TEs in the brain, both in physiological and pathological contexts. In the brain, their activity is believed to be important for neuronal plasticity. In neurological and age-related disorders, aberrant activity of TEs may contribute to disease etiology, although this remains unclear. After providing a comprehensive overview of transposable elements and their interactions with the host, this review summarizes the current understanding of TE activity within the brain, during the aging process, and in the context of neurological and age-related conditions.
Introduction
Transposable elements (TEs) are mobile genetic elements able to move across the genome, independently of their host, either through a cut-and-paste mechanism or by a copy-and-paste mechanism (Wells and Feschotte, 2020). These sequences represent approximately 41% and 48% of the mouse and human genomes respectively, which is particularly relevant when compared to the much smaller percentage of coding sequences (1.5%) (Hermant and Torres-Padilla, 2021; Hoyt et al., 2022). Long considered as purely “junk DNA,” TEs were originally identified in maize by Barbara McClintock more than 60 years ago (McClintock, 1950; McClintock, 1951). She referred to them as “controlling elements” and played a fundamental role in highlighting their capacity to influence gene expression (McClintock, 1956). Since this pioneering work, TEs have been shown to play major roles in genome evolution, structural variation, genome size expansion, spatial organization, genetic diversity and gene regulation (; ; ). On the other hand, unchecked activity of TEs can have nefarious effects, namely inducing mutations, disrupting genes, hindering the transcriptional regulation of genes and leading to the production of extranuclear nucleic acids that can induce cellular toxicity. For that reason, the host maintains a tight control over TE activity, mainly at the transcriptional and epigenetic levels, keeping them silent to prevent deleterious changes. This control is frequently broken in disease, such as cancer and neurological disorders, and during aging. Moreover, silencing mechanisms appear also partially released in certain developmental contexts or tissues, such as in the brain, raising the possibility of an actual functional role conferred by TE activity, in particular in neuronal lineages. However, the contribution of TEs to both physiological and pathological contexts, particularly in the brain, are poorly understood. Specifically, is the aberrant activity of TEs merely a consequence of the disease, or could it contribute to certain pathological phenotypes? In this review, we provide a comprehensive overview about transposable elements and their interactions with the host. Additionally, we summarize the current knowledge regarding TE activity in physiological contexts, with a specific emphasis on the brain and aging, as well as neurological and age-related disorders.
Insights into transposable elements
Classification
TEs can be divided into two main classes, according to their transposition mechanism. Class I TEs, or retrotransposons, mobilize their DNA via an RNA intermediate, through a “copy-and-paste” mechanism, in a process known as retrotransposition. Class II TEs, or DNA transposons, mobilize through a “cut-and-paste” mechanism, in a process referred to as transposition (). DNA transposons, which are no longer active in most mammalian species, represent a minority of the human (3%) and mouse (1%) genome (Pace and Feschotte, 2007; Hoyt et al., 2022). In turn, class I retrotransposons constitute the vast majority of TEs in mammals and are divided into two main subclasses according to their mechanism of chromosomal integration: long terminal repeat (LTR) retrotransposons, and non-LTR retrotransposons (Figure 1) (Wells and Feschotte, 2020).
FIGURE 1
LTR retrotransposons, also called endogenous retroviruses (ERVs), are remnants of exogenous retroviruses that were incorporated in the host germline as a result of ancient viral infections (Mao et al., 2021; Hoyt et al., 2022). A full length, autonomous, ERV has an average length of 7.5 kb and consists of two identical LTRs, which are non-coding regions containing cis-regulatory sequences, such as promoters, enhancers, or polyadenylation signals. The LTRs usually flank a set of three ORFs that encode the viral proteins: gag, which encodes structural proteins that form virus-like particles (VLPs); pro-pol, which encodes the enzymes necessary for the viral life cycle (reverse transcriptase, integrase, and protease); and env, which encodes the envelope proteins (Figure 1) (Küry et al., 2018). Most ERV copies have accumulated mutations that prevent their retrotransposition. In addition, recombination events between the two LTRs of a proviral insertion often lead to ERVs being reduced to a single LTR, or solo LTR, leaving behind remnants of regulatory sequences scattered throughout the genome (Thomas et al., 2018). All ERV subfamilies are no longer active in the human genome, except the evolutionary young HERV-K subfamily HML-2 (human mouse mammary tumor virus like-2), which shows signs of transcriptional activity and intact ORFs, still capable of producing some of the proteins required for VLPs formation (
Non-LTR retrotransposons are composed of two main subtypes: the autonomous LINEs (Long Interspersed Nuclear Elements) and non-autonomous SINEs (Short Interspersed Nuclear Elements).
LINEs constitute approximately 21% of the mammalian genomes and are autonomous, meaning that they produce all the machinery necessary for their own retrotransposition (
Unlike LINEs, SINEs are non-autonomous elements. They do not encode any proteins and rely on the machinery produced by LINE-1 elements for their retrotransposition. Although they show a strong cis-preference, LINE-1-derived proteins, ORF1p and ORF2p, are able to bind in trans SINE RNAs (
Host-transposable element interactions
Although TEs represent a large proportion of mammalian genomes, only a small fraction remains currently active. Indeed, in humans, less than 0.05% of these elements are able to mobilize (Mills et al., 2007). This is because newly inserted TEs usually do not provide an immediate fitness advantage to the host, consequently they tend to become fixed mainly through genetic drift, accumulating neutral mutations over evolutionary time. As a result, older TE insertions in genomes have accumulated mutations that render them non-functional, while more recently inserted TEs retain the capacity for activity, both in terms of transcription and, occasionally, transposition (
In order to persist throughout evolution, TEs must achieve a delicate equilibrium between their expression and repression in the genome of their hosts. This allows them to replicate and propagate within the genome while avoiding deleterious effects on the host cell functions, as this would not be favorable for their survival (
Molecular and cellular impacts of transposable elements
The presence of TEs can alter the host genome or the transcriptome in numerous ways, contributing to genome evolution and diversification but also potentially affecting genome stability (Figure 2). Active TEs that have the ability to move across the genome represent a source of mutations, as insertions of TEs into protein-coding genes or regulatory regions can disrupt gene function (
FIGURE 2

Impact of TEs at the molecular and cellular levels. Actively transposing TEs (blue panel) can be a source of genome instability by inducing mutations, deletions, transduction or DNA damage. The accumulation of products derived from TE may cause inflammation. Even without being active (orange panel), TEs have the ability to alter the host genome through recombination events, alteration of transcription, of gene expression regulation and 3D chromatin architecture. Sequences derived from TEs can also be co-opted by the host. Blue boxes represent genes. TF, transcription factor. Adapted from (
TEs can also contribute to genome instability via their encoded products (Hedges and Deininger, 2007). In particular, the LINE-1 ORF2p encoded-protein can create double-strand breaks (DSBs) at endonuclease target sites (
Furthermore, TEs can induce changes in the host genome even without being active. Recombination events can occur between dispersed TE sequences due to their repetitive nature and high copy number, generating large genomic rearrangements, including deletions, duplications, and inversions (Sen et al., 2006;
In addition, TEs carry a number of regulatory motifs or sequences, which can affect host gene expression, independently of their activity. TEs, such as LINE-1, have internal polyadenylation signals, which can lead to elongation defects, by promoting premature termination of transcription (Perepelitsa-Belancio and Deininger, 2003;
TEs can also impact host gene expression by affecting the 3D chromatin architecture, either by acting as insulator elements or by being enriched at the boundaries of topologically associating domains (TADs). TADs are chromatin domains where enhancer-promoter interactions are favored, and their boundaries are enriched for binding sites of the zinc finger protein CTCF, many of which derive from TE sequences. This protein not only demarcates these boundaries but also mediates chromatin loop formation (
Beyond regulatory sequences, TE-derived sequences can also be co-opted or exapted for host gene function. One striking example of this are long non-coding RNAs (lncRNAs). Indeed, 83% of the human and 66% of the mouse lncRNAs contain at least one TE (Kelley and Rinn, 2012). The presence of the TE sequence may play a role in regulating lncRNAs expression, processing and localization. For example, they can provide polyadenylation signals or contribute to post-transcriptional adenosine-to-inosine editing. TEs can also serve as functional domains within lncRNAs. Indeed, some studies have demonstrated that mutation or deletion of TEs from the lncRNA sequence can impact its function by altering its localization and expression (
In addition to lncRNA genes, the exaptation of TE sequences led to the emergence of key protein-coding genes, with both conserved and species-specific functions (
Lastly, TEs can influence, indirectly, the expression of host genes at the epigenetic level as both silencing mechanisms or loss of silencing in certain contexts can spread beyond the TE itself and affect nearby host gene expression (
Silencing mechanisms
As the immediate uncontrolled activity of TEs can have negative consequences on the genome (see previous section), the host has developed various mechanisms operating at different levels to prevent their expression and transposition (Klein and O’Neill, 2018). At the transcriptional level, silencing mechanisms comprise the deposition of epigenetic modifications on chromatin, primarily involving DNA methylation as well as repressive histone modifications (
In addition, repression of TEs can also occur at the post-transcriptional level, via RNA silencing-based mechanisms (Heras et al., 2014;
Finally, post-translational mediated repression commonly targets the LINE-1 RNP complex for destabilization and degradation (Saleh et al., 2019). It has been proposed that the zinc-finger antiviral protein ZAP colocalizes with LINE-1 RNA and ORF1p in cytoplasmic stress granules to promote RNP degradation, and prevents LINE-1 and Alu retrotransposition (Moldovan and Moran, 2015). Furthermore, uridine residues can be transferred to LINE-1 mRNA in the cytoplasm by TUT7 (terminal uridyl transferase 7) and the MOV10 RNA helicase, which may prevent ORF2p-mediated reverse transcription initiation in the nucleus (Warkocki et al., 2018).
Transposable elements activity in the healthy brain and during aging
Healthy brain
Whereas TEs are kept silenced in most somatic tissues, one organ escaping this rule is the brain. Indeed, somatic retrotranspositions have been shown to occur in the healthy human and rodent brain, which could contribute to the establishment of neuronal somatic mosaicism. The first study demonstrating somatic retrotransposition in the neuronal lineage reported mobilization of an engineered human LINE-1 in vitro, in NPCs derived from rat hippocampus neural stem cells, and also in vivo, in the brain of transgenic mice bearing a similar transgene (Muotri et al., 2005). This was then further shown to occur in NPCs derived from human ESCs or from human fetal brain stem cells (
Aging
Physiological aging is another process linked with disrupted TE activity. At the molecular level, aging is associated with extensive epigenetic alterations, including changes in histone modifications and DNA methylation patterns, as well as global heterochromatin loss and redistribution (López-Otín et al., 2013). These epigenetic alterations may, in turn, impact the expression and mobilization of TEs in aged cells and tissues (
This raises the question of whether increased transcription and transposition is merely a consequence of aging, or whether it could also actively contribute to it (Maxwell, 2016). Increased transposition could contribute to the elevated DNA damage and related genomic instability associated with aging (
Recently, the HERV-K subfamily HML-2 was also implicated as a potential contributor to cellular senescence through the activation of innate immune pathways. Indeed, it was shown that not only the expression of HML-2 elements is augmented in senescent human mesenchymal stem cells (hMSCs), but also that these elements were able to produce VLPs, which could be released extracellularly and induce senescent phenotypes in young cells (Liu et al., 2023). In addition, increased levels of ERVs were observed in different model organisms, including IAPs and MusD in aged mice (
Collectively, these findings show that increased expression of TEs is a hallmark of aging. In addition, they pose TEs as key drivers of cellular senescence, primarily through the activation of innate immune pathways, either in a cell-autonomous way or in a paracrine manner in the case of HERV elements. However, questions about the consequences of TEs expression remain to be investigated such as their possible impact on gene expression through cis-regulatory mechanism or chromatin architecture modifications. Eventually, TE expression might also be implicated in the development of aging-associated disorders reviewed in the next section.
Transposable elements activity in neurological and age-related disorders
Active TEs capable of mobilizing in the genome represent a source of genomic variability, which may be harmful to the host. In fact, germline insertions of TEs have been widely linked with genetic diseases (Hancks and Kazazian, 2016). Moreover, somatic de novo insertions of TEs have also been reported in various cancers (
TABLE 1
| Disease | Cause | Implicated TE families | Impact on TE activity and potential TE-driven mechanisms | References |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Rett syndrome | Mutation in MECP2 gene | LINE-1 | Increased LINE-1 and IAP expression | Muotri et al. (2010), Skene et al. (2010), Jacob-Hirsch et al. (2018), Zhao et al. (2019) |
| ERV | Increased LINE-1 retrotransposition | |||
| Aicardi-Goutières syndrome | Mutations in TREX1, RNASEH2, SAMHD1, ADAR1 and IFIH1 genes | LINE-1 | Accumulation of DNA and RNA derived from LINE-1 and Alu in the cytosol leading to IFN-1-induced immune response | |
| SINE | ||||
| Ataxia-telangiectasia | Mutation in ATM gene | LINE-1 | Increased LINE-1 expression and retrotransposition inducing expression of interferon stimulated genes | |
| Amyotrophic lateral sclerosis | TDP-43 cytoplasmic accumulation | ERV | Increased LINE-1, SINE and ERV expression | Li et al. (2015), Liu et al. (2019), Tam et al. (2019) |
| LINE-1 | Increased LINE-1 retrotransposition | |||
| SINE | Expression of HERV-K or of its env gene leading to neuronal toxicity and cell death | |||
| Frontotemporal dementia | TDP-43 cytoplasmic accumulation | LINE-1 | Increased LINE-1, SINE and ERV expression | Li et al. (2012), Liu et al. (2019) |
| SINE | Increased LINE-1 retrotransposition | |||
| ERV | ||||
| Alzheimer’s disease | Hyperphosphorylation of Tau protein | LINE-1 | Increased expression of LINE-1, SVA, HERV | |
| SVA | HERV-K(HML-2) RNA activating Toll-like receptors (TLRs) | |||
| ERV | HERV-K transcripts leading to neurodegeneration and microglia accumulation | |||
| Hutchinson-Gilford Progeria syndrome | Mutation in LMNA gene | LINE-1 | Increased expression of LINE-1 inhibiting expression of SUV39H1 and inducing heterochromatin loss | Vazquez et al. (2019), LaRocca et al. (2020), Valle et al. (2022), Liu et al. (2023) |
| ERV | Increased HERV-K expression and accumulation of VLPs activating innate immune pathways | |||
| Werner syndrome | Mutation in WRN gene | LINE-1 | Increased expression of LINE-1 inhibiting expression of SUV39H1 and inducing heterochromatin loss | Valle et al. (2022), Liu et al. (2023) |
| ERV | Increased HERV-K expression and accumulation of VLPs activating innate immune pathways |
List of neurological and age-related disorders associated with perturbed TE activity.
Rett syndrome
Rett syndrome (RTT) is a neurodevelopmental disorder that affects predominantly young females, with a frequency ranging from 1/10,000 to 1/15,000 live female births (Marano et al., 2021). Clinical features of RTT include regression of spoken language, gait abnormalities and stereotypical hand movements (Neul et al., 2010). RTT symptoms start to manifest in early childhood and develop progressively over stages (Kyle et al., 2018). Approximately 95% of typical RTT cases are caused by mutations in the X-linked methyl-CpG binding protein 2 (MECP2) gene (
Besides genes, MECP2 was also shown to bind and repress the expression of methylated TE sequences, such as LINE-1 and IAP retrotransposons in mouse brain (Muotri et al., 2010; Skene et al., 2010). Moreover, increased LINE-1 retrotransposition was observed in neuroepithelial cells of MECP2-null mice, in human NPC derived from RTT iPSCs, and in postmortem brains of RTT patients (Muotri et al., 2010). More recently, whole genome sequencing of postmortem brain samples from RTT patients and healthy controls confirmed a higher number of somatic insertions of the human-specific LINE-1 subfamily, L1Hs, in RTT brains (Jacob-Hirsch et al., 2018). In addition, a targeted bulk sequencing approach using PCR revealed that the lack of MECP2 leads to changes in the genomic pattern of L1Hs somatic insertions in cortical neurons of RTT patients. These insertions were found to be enriched in introns and in the sense orientation, which could potentially impact gene expression (Zhao et al., 2019). All together, these studies demonstrated that MECP2 plays a role in the silencing of TE sequences, mainly from the LINE-1 family. However, the extent to which the expression of other TE families is affected in RTT and whether this could play a role in transcriptome changes and in the etiology or progression of RTT remains unknown.
Aicardi-Goutières syndrome
Aicardi-Goutières syndrome (AGS) is a progressive inflammatory encephalopathy characterized by spasticity, psychomotor retardation, intracranial calcification, white matter changes and cerebrospinal fluid lymphocytosis (
The TREX1 gene encodes the three-prime repair exonuclease 1, an exonuclease involved in the degradation of cytosolic DNA. It was shown that depletion of TREX1 in the mouse leads to the accumulation of single-stranded DNA (ssDNA) derived from TEs, highlighting retroelement-derived DNA as a substrate of TREX1 (
The RNASEH2A, RNASEH2B and RNASEH2C genes encode the three proteins composing the human ribonuclease H2 enzyme complex. Mutations in any of the three units is the most frequent cause of AGS (
Mutations in the SAMHD1 gene also cause AGS (Rice et al., 2009). This gene encodes the SAM domain and HD domain containing protein 1 (SAMHD1), a nucleocytoplasmic shuttling protein with dNTP triphosphohydrolase activity (
Finally, the ADAR1 gene encodes an adenosine deaminase acting on double-stranded RNA (dsRNA) (Rice et al., 2012). This protein was shown to bind transcripts derived from Alu elements and to prevent activation of dsRNA sensors such as MDA5, a cytoplasmic viral RNA receptor involved in IFN production and response. ADAR1 KO in NPCs results in non-edited Alu sequences that tend to form dsRNAs, which trigger IFN-1 production via the activation of MDA5 (
All the mutations described above are associated with the accumulation of cytoplasmic DNA or RNA species derived from TEs. In addition, IFN-1-induced immune response triggering the expression of interferon stimulated genes is observed in almost all AGS patients, except the ones with RNASEH2B mutations (
Ataxia-Telangiectasia
Ataxia-Telangiectasia (AT) is an autosomal recessive disorder characterized by progressive cerebellar degeneration, immunodeficiency, predisposition to develop cancer, radiation sensitivity and premature aging (Rothblum-Oviatt et al., 2016). It is caused by a loss-of-function mutation in the Ataxia-Telangiectasia mutated (ATM) gene, which encodes a serine/threonine kinase that activates the DNA repair machinery in response to DNA damage (Savitsky et al., 1995; Shiloh, 2001), highlighting a possible link between genomic instability and neurodegeneration (McKinnon, 2017).
An increase in the retrotransposition efficiency of an engineered human LINE-1 was detected in NPCs derived from ATM-deficient hESCs and in ATM KO transgenic mice. In addition, an increase in human-specific LINE-1 (L1Hs) copy number was observed in postmortem human brain tissue from AT patients compared to healthy controls (Jacob-Hirsch et al., 2018). This led to the hypothesis that the ATM protein recognizes intermediates created during LINE-1 integration as sites of DNA damage, and consequently increases the number and the length of the resulting retrotransposition events (
In a more recent study, an increased expression of evolutionary younger LINE-1 subfamilies and a concomitant decreased expression of TE epigenetic silencers, including MECP2 and KAP1, was observed in cerebellar samples from AT patients. Interestingly, targeted upregulation of the young mouse L1MdTf subfamily using a CRISPR activation (CRISPRa) strategy in the cerebellum of transgenic mice was sufficient to induce progressive ataxia and expression of interferon stimulated genes. In addition, treatment with NRTIs led to the attenuation of disease progression. This study thus delineates a causal link between increased LINE-1 activity and neurodegeneration, using a mouse model (Takahashi et al., 2022). However, whether LINE-1 enhanced activity triggers neurodegeneration directly remains to be functionally demonstrated, as the observed neurodegeneration could be a consequence of increased DNA damage as previously shown (
Neurodegenerative disorders
In addition to the aforementioned neurological disorders, perturbed TE activity has been linked to various neurodegenerative disorders, some examples of which will be developed in the following section. Amyotrophic lateral sclerosis (ALS), a disease marked by loss of motor neuron function and frontotemporal dementia (FTD), which is associated with loss of frontal and temporal cortexes, are two neurodegenerative diseases associated with disrupted TE activity (Ling et al., 2013). One of the major hallmarks of these pathologies is the loss of nuclear TAR DNA-binding protein 43 (TDP-43) and its subsequent cytoplasmic accumulation (Neumann et al., 2006). This protein was shown to bind to TE-derived transcripts from all the main classes including LINEs, SINEs, and ERVs. The association between TDP-43 and TE-derived transcripts was shown to be reduced in FTD patients and mouse models exhibiting TDP-43 dysfunction show an increase of TE-derived transcripts, which match the ones identified as TDP-43 targets (Li et al., 2012). In agreement with these findings, another study analyzed the transcriptomes of 148 ALS postmortem cortexes and identified a subset of ALS patients with TDP-43 dysfunction and increased expression of TEs, especially young LINE-1 and SVA elements (Tam et al., 2019). Moreover, the effect of nuclear TDP-43 loss and its cytoplasmic aggregation were investigated in postmortem brain samples of FTD and ALS-FTD patients. Chromatin decondensation around LINE-1 insertions was reported, as well as increased LINE-1 DNA content, indicative of increased retrotransposition. Accordingly, it was hypothesized that TDP-43 may regulate the expression of TEs in the brain under physiological conditions through unknown mechanisms, further suggesting that TE derepression may be implicated in ALS and FTD (Liu et al., 2019). TDP-43 was also shown to regulate the expression of HERV-K elements. Indeed, postmortem brain tissue from ALS patients display increased expression of HERV-K. In addition, the expression of HERV-K in human neurons in vitro resulted in retraction and beading of neurites, neuronal toxicity and cell death. Moreover, the expression of the HERV-K env gene in the neurons of transgenic animals led to the development of several pathological features reminiscent of ALS, including motor dysfunction (Li et al., 2015). All these observations point towards a contribution of HERV-K to neurodegeneration.
Another neurodegenerative disease that has been associated with the activation of TEs is Alzheimer’s disease (AD). One of the neuropathological signatures of AD is the hyperphosphorylation of Tau protein, which leads to the subsequent formation of intracellular neurofibrillary tangles (NFTs) (Iqbal et al., 2005; Klein et al., 2019). Expression of a pathogenic form of Tau was shown to induce heterochromatin loss in motor neurons in mice and in hippocampal neurons from AD patients. The heterochromatin relaxation was shown to be triggered by oxidative stress-induced DNA damage and to be associated with aberrant expression of genes linked with pluripotency and developmental processes, which are normally silent in the brain (
A recent study investigating TE expression in the brain of three different tauopathy mouse models reported an increase in retrotransposon transcript levels, especially from the ERV class, including IAP, IAP-E, MULV, MERVL, ERV-β4 subfamily members, but also LINE-1 and B1/B2 elements. Moreover, an increase in IAP encoded-gag protein levels and a higher copy number of LINE-1, IAP, ETn and specific ERV-K elements was detected, suggesting that these elements are actively retrotransposing in the context of tauopathy (Ramirez et al., 2022). Moreover, RNA from HERV-K (HML-2) was shown to bind to and activate the murine TLR7 and human TLR8 (Toll-like receptor) expressed in neurons and microglia, resulting in neurodegeneration and microglia accumulation, an important hallmark of AD (
Premature aging progeria syndromes
Another group of age-related disorders where TEs have been implicated are premature aging disorders, including Hutchinson-Gilford Progeria syndrome (HGPS) and Werner syndrome (WS). Both HGPS and WS recapitulate many of the phenotypes associated with normal aging (
Since heterochromatin loss is associated with loss of silencing of TEs, there has been a growing interest in exploring whether TEs could contribute to premature aging disorders. In one study, it was demonstrated that SIRT7-mediated deacetylation of H3K18 plays a role in silencing LINE-1 by facilitating its association with lamin A/C in mouse fibroblasts. Consequently, absence of SIRT7 or depletion of lamin A/C results in transcriptional upregulation of LINE-1 elements in mouse and human cells, consistent with observations from RNA-seq data from fibroblasts of HGPS patients (Vazquez et al., 2019; LaRocca et al., 2020).
Recently, LINE-1 RNA was implicated as a causal agent of heterochromatin erosion in premature aging syndromes. Increased expression of L1Hs elements was observed in hMSCs differentiated from iPSCs derived from HGPS and WS patients. The accumulation of LINE-1 RNA in the nucleus led to an increased interaction with SUV39H1, resulting in the inhibition of its enzymatic activity, loss of heterochromatin and increased expression of senescence-associated secretory phenotype (SASP) genes. Interestingly, an improvement of the senescent phenotype in dermal fibroblasts of progeria patients and HGPS mice was reported following LINE-1 RNA depletion using antisense oligonucleotides (ASOs), but not using NRTIs. In addition, LINE-1 RNA depletion led to an upregulation of pathways associated with nuclear organization, cell proliferation and transcription regulation, together with downregulation of pathways associated with aging, inflammatory response and DNA damage. Together, these results point to an important role of LINE-1 RNAs in the progression of premature aging disorders through the negative regulation of SUV39H1 enzymatic activity (Valle et al., 2022). However, the mechanism by which LINE-1 RNA inhibits SUV39H1 activity remains an open question.
A recent study showed that the HERV-K (HML-2) retrotransposon family also contributes to the senescence phenotype of premature aging syndromes. HERV-K expression was found to be upregulated in HGPS and WS cellular models, where the accumulation of viral proteins and VLPs could trigger innate immune responses thereby contributing to senescence. Importantly, as indicated in the aging section, HERV-K VLPs could be released in a paracrine manner and trigger senescence in non-senescent cells. Consistent with these results, tissues from HGPS cynomolgus monkeys exhibited an increase in ERV-W-Env protein levels. Moreover, this study showed that CRISPRa-mediated activation of HERV-K induced premature senescence, and that repression of HERV-K using shRNA, CRISPR interference or NRTI treatment reduced cellular senescence phenotypes and tissue aging in mice (Liu et al., 2023).
All together, these studies suggest a causal relationship between increased TEs expression and aging-associated phenotypes, which can be alleviated by repressing TEs. This opens up new possibilities for premature aging treatment and offers a strategy to be applied to other aging-associated disorders.
Concluding remarks
Once considered as purely “junk DNA,” TEs are now recognized as major drivers of genome evolution and genetic diversity. As their immediate impact may be deleterious, the host has developed silencing mechanisms to restrict their expression and retrotransposition, in particular in somatic lineages. It is now accepted that the brain stands out as an exception, exhibiting increased activity of TEs from specific families or subfamilies. It is still unclear whether this is linked to the relaxation of epigenetic mechanisms in neuronal lineages or the presence of specific factors promoting TE expression, or most likely a combination of both. Furthermore, while the biological importance of these observations for neuronal plasticity and diversity is intriguing, it remains unknown and challenging to investigate experimentally.
The aging process, as well as the neurological and age-related disorders described in this review and showing perturbed TE activity, share significant common hallmarks, such as increased DNA damage from retrotransposition, the cytoplasmic accumulation of nucleic acid species from TEs, and the induction of IFN-1 immune response, which can trigger inflammation. Although a causal link between TE expression and neurodegeneration or aging-associated phenotypes is observed in models of AT and progeroid syndromes, the relative contribution of these different features to pathological phenotypes and the sequence of events are unclear. In addition, the potential cis-regulatory roles of TE promoters and their influence on transcriptional networks in the various disease contexts remain poorly explored. Regardless, products encoded by TEs, including transcripts and proteins, merit further investigation, in particular as potential candidates for the development of biomarkers of biological age or neurological disorders (LaRocca et al., 2020).
Genome editing technologies such as CRISPR-Cas9 will be essential tools to further unravel the contribution of TEs in physiological or disease contexts (
Furthermore, the development of tools for TE annotation, the more systematic inclusion of TE sequences in next-generation sequencing analysis and the improvement of dedicated computational pipelines will undoubtedly help to understand further the extent to which TE expression and their chromatin state is perturbed in a specific context, as well as the impact on the transcriptome (Lanciano and Cristofari, 2020). In particular, it will be important to distinguish expression of TEs embedded in introns of genes from autonomous expression of TE from their own promoter. In addition, determining whether most elements or only a small subset of insertions from a given family/subfamily are impacted will be essential for the design of downstream functional analysis. Finally, mapping reads coming from the youngest and more active elements, usually overrepresented among the classes showing increased expression in disease (such as L1Hs or HERV-K in the human genome), is very challenging. In that regard, recent pipelines, such as CELLO-seq or SoloTE (
Statements
Author contributions
ALB: Writing–original draft, Writing–review and editing. MPB: Writing–original draft, Writing–review and editing. A-VG: Writing–original draft, Writing–review and editing.
Funding
The author(s) declare that financial support was received for the research, authorship, and/or publication of this article. This work has received funding from national Portuguese funds through FCT-Fundação para a Ciência e a Tecnologia, I.P., CEECIND/02085/2018 and 2022.02195.PTDC to A-VG. ALB is the recipient of the FCT PhD student fellowship 2023.00762.BD.
Acknowledgments
We thank the reviewers for providing constructive comments to this review.
Conflict of interest
The authors declare that the research was conducted in the absence of any commercial or financial relationships that could be construed as a potential conflict of interest.
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Summary
Keywords
transposable elements, epigenetics, brain, aging, neurological disorders, LINE-1, ERV
Citation
Le Breton A, Bettencourt MP and Gendrel A-V (2024) Navigating the brain and aging: exploring the impact of transposable elements from health to disease. Front. Cell Dev. Biol. 12:1357576. doi: 10.3389/fcell.2024.1357576
Received
18 December 2023
Accepted
08 February 2024
Published
27 February 2024
Volume
12 - 2024
Edited by
Masako Suzuki, Texas A and M University, United States
Reviewed by
Sharon Schlesinger, Hebrew University of Jerusalem, Israel
Anastasia Conti, San Raffaele Telethon Institute for Gene Therapy (SR-Tiget), Italy
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© 2024 Le Breton, Bettencourt and Gendrel.
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*Correspondence: Anne-Valerie Gendrel, anne.gendrel@medicina.ulisboa.pt
† These authors have contributed equally to this work
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