Hy everybody!

I was searching on the Internet when I came across this publication:

"Researchers in Scotland and Germany have discovered a molecular mechanism that shows promise for developing a cure for Huntington's Disease (HD).

Scientists from the University of Dundee, the German Center for Neurodegenerative Diseases (DZNE) in Bonn, the Max-Planck Institute for Molecular Genetics in Berlin and the Johannes Gutenberg-Universität Mainz have found a mechanism that specifically stirs and induces the synthesis of disease-making protein in HD patients.

Their data lead to the conclusion that a selective overproduction of aberrant Huntington protein in patients is a key step in the establishment of the disease, which affects 1 in 10,000 people in Western countries and is so far incurable.

"This is a very promising strategy to develop a small molecule drug therapy that is able to inhibit the production of disease-making protein," said Professor Susann Schweiger of the University of Dundee and Johannes Gutenberg-Universität Mainz.

"Theoretically, if you don't have the disease-making protein then you don't have the disease. Obviously we still have work to do to develop a drug to target these mechanisms and inhibit the production of this protein but we think this research is attractive to drug discovery and ongoing work in this area is being carried out."

The new discovery once again raises hopes that a curative therapy can be established. The scientists found that it was mainly three proteins - the mammalian target of rapamycin (mTOR), protein phosphatase 2A (PP2A) and Midline 1 (MID1) - that specifically drive the production of disease-making protein in HD patients.

As a result, more and more aberrant protein is produced with time, which leads to a protein overload in the cell. By interfering with the function of the three proteins it is possible to disrupt this circle and prevent the synthesis of aberrant protein in HD patients.


The Dundee-Germany research is published in the latest edition of the Nature Communications journal."

Source: dundee.ac.uk

Marsha, SteveI - Opinions???

From a reading of the abstract, I think it means this:
Proteins in the cell are constantly being renewed and protein synthesis never stops. Some proteins must be synthesized at constant rates while others can vary in their rates. To my understanding, proteins regulated by mTOR vary their rates according to nutrient availability. The paper seems to suggest that the HD mutation causes the huntingtin protein to move erroneously into the class of proteins that increase as nutrient levels increase and thus the mutant form is overproduced. Presumably mTOR inhibitors such as rapamycin or nutrient restriction could then be therapeutic.

Curcumin is a mTOR inhibitor