Stress pathways in neurodevelopmental disorders

We showed recently that the stress response and the stress proteins are decreased in the rare neurodevelopmental disorder, the Rubinstein-Taybi syndrome. We showed this phenotype is due to the destabilization of the stress factor HSF2. The stress response is also impacted in other neurodevelopmental disease.

We thus seek to clarify better the role of the stress factor HSF2 in neurodevelopmental pathologies.

• We use tridimensional models of neurodevelopment (with the enSCORE platform): human cerebral organoids that are differentiated from induced-pluripotent stem cells (iPSCs), that derived from cells of peripheral tissues of patients with neurodevelopmental disorders.These models allow the access to the first steps of the human neurodevelopment, at a cellular and structural level, really close to what occurs in the human developing brain.
• We collaborate with mathematicians in interdisciplinary projects to capture the most relevant phenotypes, dependent of the HSF-pathway, thanks to their development of new methods in deep learning adapted to our studied models.
• We are mainly interested in understanding the role of the stress pathways in those conditions. With our partner from biomedical company, we develop screening strategy for drug screening with therapeutic potential.