Functional and structural consequences of TBK1 missense variants in frontotemporal lobar degeneration and amyotrophic lateral sclerosis

Mutations in the Tank-binding kinase 1 (TBK1) gene were identified in 2015 in individuals with frontotemporal lobar degeneration (FTLD) and amyotrophic lateral sclerosis (ALS). They account for ∼3–4% of cases. To date, over 100 distinct mutations, including missense, nonsense, deletion, insertion, duplication, and splice-site mutations have been reported. While nonsense mutations are predicted to cause disease via haploinsufficiency, the mechanisms underlying disease pathogenesis with missense mutations is not fully elucidated. TBK1 is a kinase involved in neuroinflammation, which is commonly observed in these diseases. TBK1 also phosphorylates key autophagy mediators, thereby regulating proteostasis, a pathway that is dysregulated in ALS-FTLD. Recently, several groups have characterised various missense mutations with respect to their effects on the phosphorylation of known TBK1 substrates, TBK1 homodimerization, interaction with optineurin, and the regulation of autophagy and neuroinflammatory pathways. Further, the effects of either global or conditional heterozygous knock-out of Tbk1, or the heterozygous or homozygous knock-in of ALS-FTLD associated mutations, alone or when crossed with the SOD1G93A classical ALS mouse model or a TDP-43 mouse model, have been reported. In this review we summarise the known functional effects of TBK1 missense mutations. We also present novel modelling data that predicts the structural effects of missense mutations and discuss how they correlate with the known functional effects of these mutations.