Effects of a patient-derived de novo coding alteration of CACNA1I in mice connect a schizophrenia risk gene with sleep spindle deficits.

CACNA1I, a schizophrenia risk gene, encodes a subtype of voltage-gated T-type calcium channel Ca_V3.3. We previously reported that a patient-derived missense de novo mutation (R1346H) of CACNA1I impaired Ca_V3.3 channel function. Here, we generated Ca_V3.3-RH knock-in animals, along with mice lacking Ca_V3.3, to investigate the biological impact of R1346H (RH) variation. We found that RH mutation altered cellular excitability in the thalamic reticular nucleus (TRN), where Ca_V3.3 is abundantly expressed. Moreover, RH mutation produced marked deficits in sleep spindle occurrence and morphology throughout non-rapid eye movement (NREM) sleep, while Ca_V3.3 haploinsufficiency gave rise to largely normal spindles. Therefore, mice harboring the RH mutation provide a patient derived genetic model not only to dissect the spindle biology but also to evaluate the effects of pharmacological reagents in normalizing sleep spindle deficits. Importantly, our analyses highlighted the significance of characterizing individual spindles and strengthen the inferences we can make across species over sleep spindles. In conclusion, this study established a translational link between a genetic allele and spindle deficits during NREM observed in schizophrenia patients, representing a key step toward testing the hypothesis that normalizing spindles may be beneficial for schizophrenia patients.

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