Publications by authors named "Hitoshi Sakimoto"

Ferroptosis is a type of programmed cell death owed to an intracellular accumulation of iron resulting in the generation reactive oxygen species, which in turn can cause peroxidation of plasma membrane lipids and ultimately result in cell death. We investigated the potential involvement of VPS13A deficiency in ferroptosis. The VPS13A gene encodes for chorein, and its deficiency is a molecular cause of chorea-acanthocytosis (ChAc), a Huntington-like disease with neurodegeneration in the striatum.

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VPS13A, also known as chorein, whose loss of function causes chorea-acanthocytosis (ChAc), is characterized by Huntington's-disease-like neurodegeneration and neuropsychiatric symptoms in addition to acanthocytosis in red blood cells. We previously reported that ChAc-model mice with a loss of chorein function exhibited male infertility, with asthenozoospermia and mitochondrial dysmorphology in the spermatozoa. Here, we report a novel aspect of chorein dysfunction in male fertility, particularly its role in spermatogenesis and mitochondrial integrity.

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Objectives: The authors describe five depressive patients with initially decreased striatal accumulation of dopamine transporter (DAT) single-photon emission computed tomography (SPECT), which improved in parallel with clinical symptoms.

Methods: Patients who exhibited decreased striatal accumulation and recovery of DATSPECT were identified among patients with the symptoms of depression. Their clinical and neuroimaging data were reviewed.

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Aim: Auditory Charles Bonnet syndrome (aCBS) is characterized by musical hallucinations (MHs) that accompany acquired hearing impairments. This hallucination is the acoustic perception of music, sounds, or songs in the absence of an outside stimulus, and it may be associated with hyperactivity of the superior temporal lobes. Some studies have reported the possibility of improving MH with antiepileptics.

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Chorea-acanthocytosis (ChAc) is an autosomal recessive hereditary disease characterized by neurodegeneration in the striatum and acanthocytosis caused by loss-of-function mutations in the Vacuolar Protein Sorting 13 Homolog A (VPS13A) gene, which encodes chorein. We previously produced a ChAc-model mouse with a homozygous deletion of exons 60-61 in Vps13a, which corresponded to the human disease mutation. We found that male ChAc-model mice exhibited complete infertility as a result of severely diminished sperm motility.

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Chorea-acanthocytosis (ChAc) is an autosomal recessive hereditary disease characterized by neurodegeneration in the striatum and acanthocytosis that is caused by mutations in the VPS13A gene. We previously produced a ChAc model mice encoding a human disease mutation with deletion of exons 60-61 in the VPS13A gene. The behavioral and pathological phenotypes of the model mice varied a good deal from individual to individual, indicating that differences between individuals may be caused by the content of a genetic hybrid 129/Sv and C57BL/6J strain background.

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