Acupuncture Therapy ; Female ; Humans ; Huntington Disease ; therapy ; Middle Aged

Cellular autophagy is a major degradative pathway for clearance of aggregate-prone proteins and damaged organelles. It plays an important role in regulating cellular homeostasis, cell growth and development, and disease development. Dysfunctional autophagy contributes to the pathology of various neurodegenerative diseases, such as Alzheimer's disease, Parkinson's disease and Huntington's disease, in which specific pathological protein accumulation occurs. A growing body of evidence suggests that resveratrol plays a significantly role in the regulation of autophagy and clearance of pathological proteins. Resveratrol is a potential drug for neurodegenerative diseases therapy. This review focuses on the effects of resveratrol on cellular autophagy and clinical application in the control of neurodegenerative diseases.
Alzheimer Disease ; Autophagy ; Humans ; Huntington Disease ; Neurodegenerative Diseases ; drug therapy ; Parkinson Disease ; Stilbenes ; pharmacology

Acupuncture Therapy ; Humans ; Huntington Disease ; physiopathology ; therapy ; Male ; Middle Aged ; Motor Activity

The differential diagnosis of chorea can be challenging in patients without a family history of Huntington's disease or acute-onset hemichorea with stroke. A 50-year-old woman presented with generalized choreic movements and gait disturbance that first appeared 1 month previously. An extensive diagnostic workup including genetic testing, neuroimaging, and various laboratory investigations revealed that this patient had developed chorea as a result of mercury poisoning. She was treated successfully with chelation therapy.
Chelation Therapy ; Chorea ; Diagnosis, Differential ; Female ; Gait ; Genetic Testing ; Humans ; Huntington Disease ; Mercury Poisoning ; Neuroimaging ; Stroke

The differential diagnosis of chorea can be challenging in patients without a family history of Huntington's disease or acute-onset hemichorea with stroke. A 50-year-old woman presented with generalized choreic movements and gait disturbance that first appeared 1 month previously. An extensive diagnostic workup including genetic testing, neuroimaging, and various laboratory investigations revealed that this patient had developed chorea as a result of mercury poisoning. She was treated successfully with chelation therapy.
Chelation Therapy ; Chorea ; Diagnosis, Differential ; Female ; Gait ; Genetic Testing ; Humans ; Huntington Disease ; Mercury Poisoning ; Neuroimaging ; Stroke

Huntington's disease (HD) is an autosomal dominantly-inherited neurodegenerative disease, which is caused by CAG trinucleotide expansion in exon 1 of the Huntingtin (HTT) gene. Although HD is a rare disease, its monogenic nature makes it an ideal model in which to understand pathogenic mechanisms and to develop therapeutic strategies for neurodegenerative diseases. Clustered regularly-interspaced short palindromic repeats (CRISPR) is the latest technology for genome editing. Being simple to use and highly efficient, CRISPR-based genome-editing tools are rapidly gaining popularity in biomedical research and opening up new avenues for disease treatment. Here, we review the development of CRISPR-based genome-editing tools and their applications in HD research to offer a translational perspective on advancing the genome-editing technology to HD treatment.
Humans ; Gene Editing ; Huntington Disease/therapy* ; CRISPR-Cas Systems/genetics* ; Neurodegenerative Diseases

Gene therapy is a potential therapeutic strategy for treating hereditary movement disorders, including hereditary ataxia, dystonia, Huntington's disease, and Parkinson's disease. Genome editing is a type of genetic engineering in which DNA is inserted, deleted or replaced in the genome using modified nucleases. Recently, clustered regularly interspaced short palindromic repeat/CRISPR associated protein 9 (CRISPR/Cas9) has been used as an essential tool in biotechnology. Cas9 is an RNA-guided DNA endonuclease enzyme that was originally associated with the adaptive immune system of Streptococcus pyogenes and is now being utilized as a genome editing tool to induce double strand breaks in DNA. CRISPR/Cas9 has advantages in terms of clinical applicability over other genome editing technologies such as zinc-finger nucleases and transcription activator-like effector nucleases because of easy in vivo delivery. Here, we review and discuss the applicability of CRISPR/Cas9 to preclinical studies or gene therapy in hereditary movement disorders.
Biotechnology ; Deoxyribonuclease I ; DNA ; Dystonia ; Genetic Engineering ; Genetic Therapy ; Genome ; Huntington Disease ; Immune System ; Movement Disorders* ; Parkinson Disease ; Spinocerebellar Degenerations ; Streptococcus pyogenes

This article provides an overview of the therapeutic strategies, from ordinary classical drugs to the modern molecular strategy at experimental level, for Huntington's disease. The disease is characterized by choreic movements, psychiatric disorders, striatal atrophy with selective small neuronal loss, and autosomal dominant inheritance. The genetic abnormality is CAG expansion in huntingtin gene. Mutant huntingtin with abnormally long glutamine stretch aggregates and forms intranuclear inclusions. In this review, I summarize the results of previous trials from the following aspects; 1. symptomatic/palliative therapies including drugs, stereotaxic surgery and repetitive transcranial magnetic stimulation, 2. anti-degenerative therapies including anti-excitotoxicity, reversal of mitochondrial dysfunction and anti-apoptosis, 3. restorative/reparative therapies including neural trophic factors and tissue or stem cell transplantation, and 4. molecular targets in specific and radical therapies including inhibition of truncation of huntingtin, inhibition of aggregate formation, normalization of transcriptional dysregulation, enhancement of autophagic clearance of mutant huntingtin, and specific inhibition of huntingtin expression by sRNAi. Although the strategies mentioned in the latter two categories are mostly at laboratory level at present, we are pleased that one can discuss such "therapeutic strategies", a matter absolutely impossible before the causal gene of Huntington's disease was identified more than 10 years ago. It is also true, however, that some of the "therapeutic strategies" mentioned here would be found difficult to implement and abandoned in the future.
Atrophy ; Autophagy ; Cell- and Tissue-Based Therapy ; Chorea ; Genetic Therapy ; Glutamine ; Huntington Disease* ; Intranuclear Inclusion Bodies ; Neurons ; RNA Interference ; Stem Cell Transplantation ; Transcranial Magnetic Stimulation ; Wills

Isolation of induced pluripotent stem cells (iPSCs) from fully differentiated somatic cells has revolutionized existing concepts of cell differentiation and stem cells. Importantly, iPSCs generated from somatic cells of patients can be used to model different types of human diseases. They may also serve as autologous cell sources that can be used in transplantation therapy. In this study, we investigated the neuronal properties of an iPSC line that is derived from human neonatal foreskin fibroblasts (FS-1). We initially examined the morphology and marker expression of FS-1 cells at undifferentiated stage. We then spontaneously differentiated FS-1 cells in suspension culture and examined the expression of markers representing three germ layers. We finally differentiated FS-1 cells into neuronal lineages by co-culturing them with PA6 stromal cells, and found that, under the conditions we used, they have a tendency to differentiate into more forebrain-type neurons, suggesting that FS-1 iPSC-derived neural cells will be useful to be used in cell therapy of stroke or Huntington's disease, among others. Taken together, FS-1 cells derived from human neonatal fibroblasts exhibit very similar properties with human ES cells, and can provide useful sources for cell therapy and various other applications.
Cell Differentiation ; Fibroblasts ; Foreskin ; Germ Layers ; Humans ; Huntington Disease ; Induced Pluripotent Stem Cells ; Infant, Newborn ; Neurons ; Pluripotent Stem Cells ; Stem Cells ; Stroke ; Stromal Cells ; Tissue Therapy ; Transplants

During the past few years, gene expression studies have shown that the perturbation of transcription frequently results in neuronal dysfunction in polyglutamine (PolyQ) diseases such as Huntington's disease (HD). Histone deacetylases (HDACs) act as repressors of transcription through interaction with co-repressor complexes, leading to chromatin remodelling. Aberrant interaction between PolyQ proteins and regulators of transcription could be one mechanism by which transcriptional dysregulation occurs. Here, the authors discuss the possible mechanism of transcriptional dysfunction in PolyQ disease, including the effect of histone acetyltransferases (HATs) and HDACs on pathogenesis, and the potential therapeutic pathways through which histone deacetylase inhibitors (HDACIs) might act to correct the aberrant transcription observed in HD and other PolyQ diseases.
Animals ; Histone Acetyltransferases ; genetics ; metabolism ; Histone Deacetylase Inhibitors ; therapeutic use ; Histone Deacetylases ; genetics ; metabolism ; Humans ; Huntington Disease ; drug therapy ; enzymology ; metabolism ; Peptides ; metabolism