Project description:Wild-type CBAxC57BL/6 (6 weeks of age) and HD Exon 1 R6/2 CBAxC57BL/6 (6 weeks of age). Control groups for two drug studies. All animals injected with normal saline 30-60 minutes prior to sacrifice. Keywords: parallel sample
Project description:Wild-type CBAxC57BL/6 (6 weeks of age) and HD Exon 1 R6/2 CBAxC57BL/6 (6 weeks of age). Control groups for two drug studies. All animals injected with normal saline 30-60 minutes prior to sacrifice. Keywords: parallel sample
Project description:Histone deacetylase (HDAC) 4 is a transcriptional repressor that contains a glutamine rich domain. We hypothesised that it may be involved in the molecular pathogenesis of Huntington's disease (HD), a protein folding neurodegenerative disorder caused by an aggregation-prone polyglutamine expansion and transcriptional dysregulation. We found that HDAC4 interacts with huntingtin in a polyglutamine-length dependent manner and co-localises with cytoplasmic inclusions. We show that HDAC4 reduction delayed cytoplasmic aggregate formation, restored Bdnf transcript levels and rescued neuronal and cortico-striatal synaptic function in HD mouse models. This was accompanied by an improvement in motor co-ordination, neurological phenotypes and increased lifespan. Surprisingly, HDAC4 reduction had no effect on global transcriptional dysfunction and did not modulate nuclear huntingtin aggregation. Our results define a crucial role for cytoplasmic aggregation in the molecular pathology of HD. HDAC4 reduction presents a novel strategy for targeting huntingtin aggregation which may be amenable to small molecule therapeutics. mRNA expression analysis was performed by microarray in 15 weeks old WT (n=8), R6/2 (n=9), HDAC4het (n=8) and Double R6/2::HDAC4het (n=9) mice. Microarray quality control was performed using the software package provided on RACE (http://race.unil.ch).
Project description:Histone deacetylase (HDAC) 4 is a transcriptional repressor that contains a glutamine rich domain. We hypothesised that it may be involved in the molecular pathogenesis of Huntington's disease (HD), a protein folding neurodegenerative disorder caused by an aggregation-prone polyglutamine expansion and transcriptional dysregulation. We found that HDAC4 interacts with huntingtin in a polyglutamine-length dependent manner and co-localises with cytoplasmic inclusions. We show that HDAC4 reduction delayed cytoplasmic aggregate formation, restored Bdnf transcript levels and rescued neuronal and cortico-striatal synaptic function in HD mouse models. This was accompanied by an improvement in motor co-ordination, neurological phenotypes and increased lifespan. Surprisingly, HDAC4 reduction had no effect on global transcriptional dysfunction and did not modulate nuclear huntingtin aggregation. Our results define a crucial role for cytoplasmic aggregation in the molecular pathology of HD. HDAC4 reduction presents a novel strategy for targeting huntingtin aggregation which may be amenable to small molecule therapeutics. mRNA expression analysis was performed by microarray in 9 weeks old WT (n=9), R6/2 (n=9), HDAC4het (n=9) and Double R6/2::HDAC4het (n=10) mice. Microarray quality control was performed using the software package provided on RACE (http://race.unil.ch).
Project description:Evaluation of the effect of procedural memory using the double-H maze (DH) on striatal and hippocampal transcriptome in HD R6/1 mice
