Tarik Seref Onur, Andrew Laitman, He Zhao, Ryan Keyho, Hyemin Kim, Jennifer Wang, Megan Mair, Huilan Wang, Lifang Li, Alma Perez, Maria de Haro, Ying-Wooi Wan, Genevera Allen, Boxun Lu, Ismael Al-Ramahi, Zhandong Liu, Juan Botas
Most research on neurodegenerative diseases has focused on neurons, yet glia help form and maintain the synapses whose loss is so prominent in these conditions. To investigate the contributions of glia to Huntington's disease (HD), we profiled the gene expression alterations of Drosophila expressing human mutant Huntingtin (m HTT ) in either glia or neurons and compared these changes to what is observed in HD human and HD mice striata. A large portion of conserved genes are concordantly dysregulated across the three species; we tested these genes in a high-throughput behavioral assay and found that downregulation of genes involved in synapse assembly mitigated pathogenesis and behavioral deficits...
April 19, 2021: ELife