Activation of HERV-K(HML-2) limits cortical neuronal differentiation by modulating Neurotrophic Tyrosine Receptor Kinase 3 expression

The biological function and disease association of human endogenous retroviral (HERV) elements remains largely elusive. We addressed the physiological role of HERV-K(HML-2) in neuronal differentiation by manipulating HERV-K(HML-2) expression levels. We used CRISPR engineering to activate or repress HERV-K(HML-2) and demonstrate that elevated HERV-K(HML-2) transcription is detrimental for development, functionality and growth of cortical neurons. Effects are cell-type specific, as dopaminergic neurons were unaffected. We further show that layer formation is altered during forebrain organoid formation following activation of HERV-K(HML-2) transcription. HERV-K(HML-2) transcriptional activation concurrently elevated Neurotrophic Tyrosine Receptor Kinase 3 (NTRK3) expression along with other neurodegeneration-related genes. Direct transcriptional activation of NTRK3 resembled the HERV-K(HML-2) activation phenotype. Intriguingly, reduction of NTRK3 levels in HERV-K(HML-2)-activated cortical neurons restored differentiated cortical neurons. Hence, our findings unravel a unique cell type-specific mechanism of HERV-K(HML-2) during cortical neuronal differentiation. Overall design: We induced cortical neuronal differentiation in H9-CRISPRa-HERV-K(HML-2) as well as H9-CRISPRa-control cells and performed total RNA sequencing (RNAseq) at day 0, day 10, day 27, day 41 and day 60 of cortical neuronal differentiation.