Overexpression of the CT GalNAc transferase in skeletal muscle alters myofiber growth, neuromuscular structure, and laminin expression.

Carbohydrates have been shown to mediate or modulate a number of important events in the development of the nervous system; however, there is little evidence that they participate directly in the development of synapses. One carbohydrate structure that is likely to be important in synaptic development of the neuromuscular junction is the CT carbohydrate antigen [GalNAcbeta1,4[NeuAcalpha2,3]Galbeta1(-3GalNAc or -4GlcNAc)]. The synaptic localization of the CT antigen is due to the presence of the terminal beta1,4 GalNAc linkage, and such linkages are localized to the neuromuscular junction in many species. Here we show that an enzyme that can create the synaptic CT structure, the CT GalNAc transferase, is also confined to the neuromuscular junction in mice. Using transgenic mice, we show that overexpression of the CT GalNAc transferase in extrasynaptic regions in skeletal myofibers caused as much as a 60% reduction in the diameter of adult myofibers and an order of magnitude increase in satellite cells. Neuromuscular junctions of transgenic mice had severely reduced numbers of secondary folds, Schwann cell processes were present in the synaptic cleft, and secondary folds were often misaligned with active zones. In addition, multiple presynaptic specializations occurred on individual myofibers. In addition, some normally synaptic proteins, including laminin alpha4, laminin alpha5, utrophin, and NCAM, were expressed along extrasynaptic regions of myofibers. One of the muscle proteins that displayed increased glycosylation with the CT antigen in the transgenic mice was alpha-dystroglycan. These experiments provide the first in vivo evidence that a synaptic carbohydrate antigen has important roles in the development of the neuromuscular synapse and suggest that the CT antigen is involved in controlling the expression of synaptic molecules.