Statements in which the resource exists as a subject.
PredicateObject
rdf:type
lifeskim:mentions
pubmed:issue
18
pubmed:dateCreated
2002-9-11
pubmed:abstractText
Huntington's disease (HD) results from polyglutamine expansion in huntingtin (htt), a protein with several consensus caspase cleavage sites. Despite the identification of htt fragments in the brain, it has not been shown conclusively that htt is cleaved by caspases in vivo. Furthermore, no study has addressed when htt cleavage occurs with respect to the onset of neurodegeneration. Using antibodies that detect only caspase-cleaved htt, we demonstrate that htt is cleaved in vivo specifically at the caspase consensus site at amino acid 552. We detect caspase-cleaved htt in control human brain as well as in HD brains with early grade neuropathology, including one homozygote. Cleaved htt is also seen in wild-type and HD transgenic mouse brains before the onset of neurodegeneration. These results suggest that caspase cleavage of htt may be a normal physiological event. However, in HD, cleavage of mutant htt would release N-terminal fragments with the potential for increased toxicity and accumulation caused by the presence of the expanded polyglutamine tract. Furthermore, htt fragments were detected most abundantly in cortical projection neurons, suggesting that accumulation of expanded htt fragments in these neurons may lead to corticostriatal dysfunction as an early event in the pathogenesis of HD.
pubmed:grant
pubmed:language
eng
pubmed:journal
pubmed:citationSubset
IM
pubmed:chemical
pubmed:status
MEDLINE
pubmed:month
Sep
pubmed:issn
1529-2401
pubmed:author
pubmed:issnType
Electronic
pubmed:day
15
pubmed:volume
22
pubmed:owner
NLM
pubmed:authorsComplete
Y
pubmed:pagination
7862-72
pubmed:dateRevised
2007-11-14
pubmed:meshHeading
pubmed-meshheading:12223539-Animals, pubmed-meshheading:12223539-Antibodies, pubmed-meshheading:12223539-Antibody Specificity, pubmed-meshheading:12223539-Brain, pubmed-meshheading:12223539-Brain Chemistry, pubmed-meshheading:12223539-Caspases, pubmed-meshheading:12223539-Cell Line, pubmed-meshheading:12223539-Chromosomes, Artificial, Yeast, pubmed-meshheading:12223539-Cysteine Proteinase Inhibitors, pubmed-meshheading:12223539-Disease Models, Animal, pubmed-meshheading:12223539-Disease Progression, pubmed-meshheading:12223539-Humans, pubmed-meshheading:12223539-Huntington Disease, pubmed-meshheading:12223539-Kidney, pubmed-meshheading:12223539-Kinetics, pubmed-meshheading:12223539-Mice, pubmed-meshheading:12223539-Mice, Neurologic Mutants, pubmed-meshheading:12223539-Mice, Transgenic, pubmed-meshheading:12223539-Mutation, pubmed-meshheading:12223539-Nerve Tissue Proteins, pubmed-meshheading:12223539-Neurons, pubmed-meshheading:12223539-Nuclear Proteins, pubmed-meshheading:12223539-Peptide Fragments, pubmed-meshheading:12223539-Transfection, pubmed-meshheading:12223539-Trinucleotide Repeat Expansion
pubmed:year
2002
pubmed:articleTitle
Caspase cleavage of mutant huntingtin precedes neurodegeneration in Huntington's disease.
pubmed:affiliation
Centre for Molecular Medicine and Therapeutics, British Columbia Children's and Women's Hospital, Vancouver, British Columbia, Canada.
pubmed:publicationType
Journal Article, Research Support, U.S. Gov't, P.H.S., Research Support, Non-U.S. Gov't