Amyotrophic lateral sclerosis (ALS) and Alzheimer's disease (AD) are characterised by differential activation of ER stress pathways: focus on UPR target genes.

The endoplasmic reticulum (ER) plays an important role in maintenance of proteostasis through the unfolded protein response (UPR), which is strongly activated in most neurodegenerative disorders. UPR signalling pathways mediated by IRE1α and ATF6 play a crucial role in the maintenance of ER homeostasis through the transactivation of an array of transcription factors. When activated, these transcription factors induce the expression of genes involved in protein folding and degradation with pro-survival effects. However, the specific contribution of these transcription factors to different neurodegenerative diseases remains poorly defined. Here, we characterised 44 target genes strongly influenced by XBP1 and ATF6 and quantified the expression of a subset of genes in the human post-mortem spinal cord from amyotrophic lateral sclerosis (ALS) cases and in the frontal and temporal cortex from frontotemporal lobar degeneration (FTLD) and Alzheimer's disease (AD) cases and controls. We found that IRE1α-XBP1 and ATF6 pathways were strongly activated both in ALS and AD. In ALS, XBP1 and ATF6 activation was confirmed by a substantial increase in the expression of both known and novel target genes involved particularly in co-chaperone activity and ER-associated degradation (ERAD) such as DNAJB9, SEL1L and OS9. In AD cases, a distinct pattern emerged, where targets involved in protein folding were more prominent, such as CANX, PDIA3 and PDIA6. These results reveal that both overlapping and disease-specific patterns of IRE1α-XBP1 and ATF6 target genes are activated in AD and ALS, which may be relevant to the development of new therapeutic strategies. Graphical abstract The endoplasmic reticulum (ER) plays an important role in maintenance of proteostasis through the unfolded protein response (UPR). Two major UPR signalling pathways are mediated by IRE1α and ATF6. Here, we demonstrate that these pathways activate differential gene sets in human post-mortem tissues derived from amyotrophic lateral sclerosis (ALS) compared to Alzheimer's disease (AD) cases. Our results identify IRE1α and ATF6 specific targets that can have major implications in the development of new therapeutic strategies and potential biomarkers.