| First Author | van Eyk Clare L | Year | 2011 |
| Journal | Hum Mol Genet | Volume | 20 |
| Pages | 2783-94 | PubMed ID | 21518731 |
| Abstract Text | Recent evidence supports a role for RNA as a common pathogenic agent in both the 'polyglutamine' and 'untranslated' dominant expanded repeat disorders. One feature of all repeat sequences currently associated with disease is their predicted ability to form a hairpin secondary structure at the RNA level. In order to investigate mechanisms by which hairpin-forming repeat RNAs could induce neurodegeneration, we have looked for alterations in gene transcript levels as hallmarks of the cellular response to toxic hairpin repeat RNAs. Three disease-associated repeat sequences--CAG, CUG and AUUCU--were specifically expressed in the neurons of Drosophila and resultant common transcriptional changes assessed by microarray analyses. Transcripts that encode several components of the Akt/Gsk3-β signalling pathway were altered as a consequence of expression of these repeat RNAs, indicating that this pathway is a component of the neuronal response to these pathogenic RNAs and may represent an important common therapeutic target in this class of diseases. | Doi | 10.1093/hmg/ddr177 |
| Issue | 14 | Month | Jul |
