«A long - standing mystery among researchers was how the buildup of
this mutant huntingtin caused cells to degrade and die, but previous technology made it virtually impossible to monitor this process at the cellular level.
Not exact matches
In humans, Huntington's is an inherited disease
caused by a gene encoding a toxic protein, called
mutant huntingtin, which
causes brain cells to die.
Huntington's disease is
caused by a gene encoding a toxic protein (
mutant huntingtin) that
causes brain cells to die.
It is
caused by a single gene abnormality which leads to the production of a
mutant form of a protein called
huntingtin (mHtt).
This abnormal binding
causes more VCP accumulation on the mitochondria,» Nerve cells with VCP -
mutant huntingtin interacting inside them became dysfunctional and self - destructed.
«The damage
caused by the
mutant huntingtin protein radiates out through the cell, like a pebble dropped in a pond.
Being able to detect and measure the amount of
mutant huntingtin present in the nervous system will be a valuable way of seeing whether the gene - silencing drug is hitting its target and has the intended effect, lowering the amount of disease
causing mHTT protein.
«We don't know exactly how the
mutant Huntingtin gene
causes the disease, so the idea is that targeting the gene expression cuts off the problem at its source — preventing it from ever having the potential to act,» said Dr Isalan.
The
mutant Huntingtin gene is thought to
cause toxic levels of protein to aggregate in the brain.
Huntington's disease is
caused by a gene encoding a toxic protein (
mutant huntingtin or mHTT).
Huntington's is an inherited disease
caused by a gene encoding a toxic protein (
mutant huntingtin) that
causes brain cells to die.
Huntington's disease is
caused by a gene encoding a toxic protein (
mutant huntingtin or mHTT) that
causes brain cells to die.
While everyone agrees that the
mutant huntingtin protein is the main
cause of harm in Huntington's disease, some researchers think that
huntingtin RNA could be an additional source of damage.
That
causes cells to manufacture a harmful protein —
mutant huntingtin.
Figuring out how the
mutant huntingtin protein
causes damage is the central problem of Huntington's disease research.
The
huntingtin protein, which in its
mutant form
causes Huntington's disease, is difficult to study because it forms clumps rather than neat crystals.