PROTEIN PRECIPITATION - A COMMON ETIOLOGY IN NEURODEGENERATIVE DISORDERS

Molecular genetic analyses have elucidated a class of inherited neurod egenerative disorders caused by expanded CAG repeats encoding polyglut amines (e.g. Huntington disease and Machado Joseph disease). Proteins containing expanded polyglutamine repeats appear to precipitate by sel f-aggregation and as a result, produce a core disease-related phenotyp e: neuronal cell death or degeneration. In other neurodegenerative dis orders, such as Alzheimer disease, prion disease, Parkinson disease an d amyotrophic lateral sclerosis, precipitation of abnormal proteins is also now considered to play a key role. These observations might lead to the elucidation of universal mechanisms for neurodegeneration and to effective treatments for many neurordegenerative disorders.