A potent small molecule inhibits polyglutamine aggregation in Huntington's disease neurons and suppresses neurodegeneration in vivo.

Polyglutamine (polyQ) disorders, including Huntington's disease (HD), are caused by expansion of polyQ-encoding repeats within otherwise unrelated gene products. In polyQ diseases, the pathology and death of affected neurons are associated with the accumulation of mutant proteins in insoluble aggregates. Several studies implicate polyQ-dependent aggregation as a cause of neurodegeneration in HD, suggesting that inhibition of neuronal polyQ aggregation may be therapeutic in HD patients.