TIA1 is a gender-specific disease modifier of a mild mouse model of spinal muscular atrophy

Spinal muscular atrophy (SMA) is caused by deletions or mutations of Survival Motor Neuron 1 ( SMN1 ) gene. The nearly identical SMN2 cannot compensate for SMN1 loss due to exon 7 skipping. The allele C ( C +/+ ) mouse recapitulates a mild SMA-like phenotype and offers an ideal system to monitor the role of disease-modifying factors over a long time. T-cell-restricted intracellular antigen 1 (TIA1) regulates SMN exon 7 splicing. TIA1 is reported to be downregulated in obese patients, although it is not known if the effect is gender-specific. We show that female Tia1- knockout ( Tia1 −/− ) mice gain significant body weight (BW) during early postnatal development. We next examined the effect of Tia1 deletion in novel C +/+ / Tia1 −/− mice. Underscoring the opposing effects of Tia1 deletion and low SMN level on BW gain, both C +/+ and C +/+ / Tia1 −/− females showed similar BW gain trajectory at all time points during our study. We observed early tail necrosis in C +/+ / Tia1 −/− females but not in males. We show enhanced impairment of male reproductive organ development and exacerbation of the C +/+ / Tia1 −/− testis transcriptome. Our findings implicate a protein factor as a gender-specific modifier of a mild mouse model of SMA.