Dysregulation of gene expression in the R6/2 model of polyglutamine disease: parallel changes in muscle and brain.
Previous analyses of gene expression in a mouse model of Huntington's disease (R6/2) indicated that an N-terminal fragment of mutant huntingtin causes downregulation of striatal signaling genes and particularly those normally induced by cAMP and retinoic acid. The present study expands the regional and temporal scope of this previous work by assessing whether similar changes occur in other brain regions affected in Huntington's disease and other polyglutamine diseases and by discerning whether gene expression changes precede the appearance of disease signs. Oligonucleotide microarrays were employed to survey the expression of approximately 11,000 mRNAs in the cerebral cortex, cerebellum and striatum of symptomatic R6/2 mice. The number and nature of gene expression changes were similar among these three regions, influenced as expected by regional differences in baseline gene expression. Time-course studies revealed that mRNA changes could only reliably be detected after 4 weeks of age, coincident with development of early pathologic and behavioral changes in these animals. In addition, we discovered that skeletal muscle is also a target of polyglutamine-related perturbations in gene expression, showing changes in mRNAs that are dysregulated in brain and also muscle-specific mRNAs. The complete dataset is available at www.neumetrix.info.
Luthi-Carter
Ruth
R
Center for Aging, Genetics and Neurodegeneration, Massachusetts General Hospital, Charlestown, MA 02129-4404, USA.
Hanson
Sarah A
SA
Strand
Andrew D
AD
Bergstrom
Donald A
DA
Chun
Wanjoo
W
Peters
Nikki L
NL
Woods
Annette M
AM
Chan
Edmond Y
EY
Kooperberg
Charles
C
Krainc
Dimitri
D
Young
Anne B
AB
Tapscott
Stephen J
SJ
Olson
James M
JM
D000818:Animals; D001483:Base Sequence; D015152:Blotting, Northern; D015153:Blotting, Western; D001921:Brain / Q000378:metabolism* / Q000473:pathology; D002540:Cerebral Cortex / Q000378:metabolism / Q000473:pathology; D003342:Corpus Striatum / Q000378:metabolism / Q000473:pathology; D004195:Disease Models, Animal; D005260:Female; D005786:Gene Expression Regulation; D006801:Humans; D000071058:Huntingtin Protein; D006816:Huntington Disease / Q000235:genetics* / Q000378:metabolism / Q000473:pathology; D007124:Immunoenzyme Techniques; D008297:Male; D051379:Mice; D008822:Mice, Transgenic; D008969:Molecular Sequence Data; D018482:Muscle, Skeletal / Q000378:metabolism* / Q000473:pathology; D009419:Nerve Tissue Proteins / Q000235:genetics* / Q000378:metabolism; D009687:Nuclear Proteins / Q000235:genetics* / Q000378:metabolism; D020411:Oligonucleotide Array Sequence Analysis; D010455:Peptides / Q000235:genetics* / Q000378:metabolism; D012333:RNA, Messenger / Q000378:metabolism
C086055:HTT protein, human; C506812:Htt protein, mouse; D000071058:Huntingtin Protein; D009419:Nerve Tissue Proteins; D009687:Nuclear Proteins; D010455:Peptides; D012333:RNA, Messenger; C097188:polyglutamine