Note to users. If you're seeing this message, it means that your browser cannot find this page's style/presentation instructions -- or possibly that you are using a browser that does not support current Web standards. Find out more about why this message is appearing, and what you can do to make your experience of our site the best it can be.

Science 20 July 2001:
Vol. 293. no. 5529, pp. 445 - 446
DOI: 10.1126/science.1063429
Prev | Table of Contents | Next

Perspectives

BIOMEDICINE:
Huntingtin--Profit and Loss

Yvon Trottier and Jean Louis Mandel

Huntington's disease (HD) is a neurodegenerative disease caused by an expanded run of glutamine repeats in the huntingtin protein. How this glutamine expansion results in the selective loss of striatal neurons characteristic of HD is not known. In a Perspective, Trottier and Mandel discuss new findings demonstrating that loss of the beneficial effects of the wild-type huntingtin protein, including production of BDNF, results in the demise of striatal neurons, which depend on BDNF for their survival.

The authors are at IGBMC-CNRS-INSERM-ULP, Illkirch Cedex 67404, C. U. de Strasbourg, France. E-mail: yvon{at}titus.u-strasbg.fr

Read the Full Text

To Advertise     Find Products

Science. ISSN 0036-8075 (print), 1095-9203 (online)