Since the early 1990s, DNA triplet repeat expansions have been found to be the cause in an ever increasing number of genetic neurologic diseases. A subset of this large family of genetic diseases has the expansion of a CAG DNA triplet in the open reading frame of a coding exon. The result of this DNA expansion is the expression of expanded glutamine amino acid repeat tracts in the affected proteins, leading to the term, Polyglutamine Diseases, which is applied to this sub-family of diseases. To date, nine distinct genes are known to be linked to polyglutamine diseases, including Huntington's disease, Machado-Joseph Disease and spinobulbar muscular atrophy or Kennedy's disease. Most of the polyglutamine diseases are characterized clinically as spinocerebellar ataxias. Here we discuss recent successes and advancements in polyglutamine disease research, comparing these different diseases with a common genetic flaw at the level of molecular biology and early drug design for a family of diseases where many new research tools for these genetic disorders have been developed. Polyglutamine disease research has successfully used interdisciplinary collaborative efforts, informative multiple mouse genetic models and advanced tools of pharmaceutical industry research to potentially serve as the prototype model of therapeutic research and development for rare neurodegenerative diseases.
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Integrative determination of atomic structure of mutant huntingtin exon 1 fibrils implicated in Huntington disease.
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December 2024
Department of Theory and Bio-Systems, Max Planck Institute of Colloids and Interfaces, 14476, Potsdam, Germany.
Neurodegeneration in Huntington's disease (HD) is accompanied by the aggregation of fragments of the mutant huntingtin protein, a biomarker of disease progression. A particular pathogenic role has been attributed to the aggregation-prone huntingtin exon 1 (HTTex1), generated by aberrant splicing or proteolysis, and containing the expanded polyglutamine (polyQ) segment. Unlike amyloid fibrils from Parkinson's and Alzheimer's diseases, the atomic-level structure of HTTex1 fibrils has remained unknown, limiting diagnostic and treatment efforts.
View Article and Find Full Text PDFLocation of polyglutamine track affects pathogenic threshold of polyglutamine expansion diseases - Importance of association with the proteasome.
Biochem Biophys Res Commun
December 2024
Laboratory of Molecular Neurodegeneration, Peter the Great St Petersburg State Polytechnical University, St Petersburg, 195251, Russian Federation. Electronic address:
The expansion of glutamine residue track (polyQ) within soluble proteins (Q proteins) is responsible for nine autosomal-dominant genetic neurodegenerative disorders. These disorders develop when polyQ expansion exceeds a specific pathogenic threshold (Q) which is unique for each disease. However, the pathogenic mechanisms associated with the variability of Q within the family of Q proteins are poorly understood.
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PLoS One
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Unidad de Investigación, Hospital Universitario de Canarias, Instituto de Investigación Sanitaria de Canarias (IISC), La Laguna, Tenerife, Spain.
Spinocerebellar ataxia type 3 (SCA3) is a cureless neurodegenerative disease recognized as the most prevalent form of dominantly inherited ataxia worldwide. The main hallmark of SCA3 is the expansion of a polyglutamine tract located in the C-terminal of Ataxin-3 (or ATXN3) protein, that triggers the mis-localization and toxic aggregation of ATXN3 in neuronal cells. The propensity of wild type and polyglutamine-expanded ATXN3 proteins to aggregate has been extensively studied over the last decades.
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Mutant huntingtin protein decreases with CAG repeat expansion: implications for therapeutics and bioassays.
Brain Commun
November 2024
Department of Neurodegenerative Disease, Huntington's Disease Centre, Queen Square Institute of Neurology, University College London, London WC1N 3BG, UK.
Huntington's disease is an inherited neurodegenerative disorder caused by a CAG repeat expansion that encodes a polyglutamine tract in the huntingtin (HTT) protein. The mutant CAG repeat is unstable and expands in specific brain cells and peripheral tissues throughout life. Genes involved in the DNA mismatch repair pathways, known to act on expansion, have been identified as genetic modifiers; therefore, it is the rate of somatic CAG repeat expansion that drives the age of onset and rate of disease progression.
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