Mapping Motor Neuron Vulnerability in the Neuraxis of Male SOD1 Mice Reveals Widespread Loss of Androgen Receptor Occurring Early in Spinal Motor Neurons

Sex steroid hormones have been implicated as disease modifiers in the neurodegenerative disorder amyotrophic lateral sclerosis (ALS). Androgens, signalling the androgen receptor (AR), predominate in males, and have widespread actions in the periphery and the central nervous system (CNS). AR translocates to the cell nucleus when activated upon binding androgens, whereby it regulates transcription of target genes the classical genomic signalling pathway. We previously reported that AR protein is decreased in the lumbar spinal cord tissue of symptomatic male SOD1 mice. Here, we further explored the changes in AR within motor neurons (MN) of the CNS, assessing their nuclear AR content and propensity to degenerate by endstage disease in male SOD1 mice. We observed that almost all motor neuron populations had undergone significant loss in nuclear AR in SOD1 mice. Interestingly, loss of nuclear AR was evident in lumbar spinal MNs as early as the pre-symptomatic age of 60 days. Several MN populations with high AR content were identified which did not degenerate in SOD1 mice. These included the brainstem ambiguus and vagus nuclei, and the sexually dimorphic spinal MNs: cremaster, dorsolateral nucleus (DLN) and spinal nucleus of bulbocavernosus (SNB). In conclusion, we demonstrate that AR loss directly associates with MN vulnerability and disease progression in the SOD1 mouse model of ALS.