Skip to main page content
U.S. flag

An official website of the United States government

Dot gov

The .gov means it’s official.
Federal government websites often end in .gov or .mil. Before sharing sensitive information, make sure you’re on a federal government site.

Https

The site is secure.
The https:// ensures that you are connecting to the official website and that any information you provide is encrypted and transmitted securely.

Access keys NCBI Homepage MyNCBI Homepage Main Content Main Navigation
Review
. 2024 Jun;32(3):1791-1804.
doi: 10.1007/s10787-024-01477-0. Epub 2024 Apr 23.

Neuroinflammation and the role of epigenetic-based therapies for Huntington's disease management: the new paradigm

Affiliations
Review

Neuroinflammation and the role of epigenetic-based therapies for Huntington's disease management: the new paradigm

Pooja Temgire et al. Inflammopharmacology. 2024 Jun.

Abstract

Huntington's disease (HD) is an inherited, autosomal, neurodegenerative ailment that affects the striatum of the brain. Despite its debilitating effect on its patients, there is no proven cure for HD management as of yet. Neuroinflammation, excitotoxicity, and environmental factors have been reported to influence the regulation of gene expression by modifying epigenetic mechanisms. Aside focusing on the etiology, changes in epigenetic mechanisms have become a crucial factor influencing the interaction between HTT protein and epigenetically transcribed genes involved in neuroinflammation and HD. This review presents relevant literature on epigenetics with special emphasis on neuroinflammation and HD. It summarizes pertinent research on the role of neuroinflammation and post-translational modifications of chromatin, including DNA methylation, histone modification, and miRNAs. To achieve this about 1500 articles were reviewed via databases like PubMed, ScienceDirect, Google Scholar, and Web of Science. They were reduced to 534 using MeSH words like 'epigenetics, neuroinflammation, and HD' coupled with Boolean operators. Results indicated that major contributing factors to the development of HD such as mitochondrial dysfunction, excitotoxicity, neuroinflammation, and apoptosis are affected by epigenetic alterations. However, the association between neuroinflammation-altered epigenetics and the reported transcriptional changes in HD is unknown. Also, the link between epigenetically dysregulated genomic regions and specific DNA sequences suggests the likelihood that transcription factors, chromatin-remodeling proteins, and enzymes that affect gene expression are all disrupted simultaneously. Hence, therapies that target pathogenic pathways in HD, including neuroinflammation, transcriptional dysregulation, triplet instability, vesicle trafficking dysfunction, and protein degradation, need to be developed.

Keywords: DNA methyltransferase inhibitor; Epigenetic; Histone deacetylase inhibitor; Huntington’s disease; Post-translational modification; Transcriptional activation.

PubMed Disclaimer

Similar articles

References

    1. Abdanipour A, Schluesener HJ, Tiraihi T (2012) Effects of valproic acid, a histone deacetylase inhibitor, on improvement of locomotor function in rat spinal cord injury based on epigenetic science. Iran Biomed J 16(2):90–100 - PubMed - PMC
    1. Arthur R, Navik U, Kumar P (2022) Repurposing artemisinins as neuroprotective agents: a focus on the PI3k/Akt signalling pathway. Naunyn Schmiedebergs Arch Pharmacol 396(4):593–605 - PubMed - DOI
    1. Athira KV, Sadanandan P, Chakravarty S (2021) Repurposing vorinostat for the treatment of disorders affecting brain. Neuromolecular Med 23(4):449–465 - PubMed - DOI
    1. Ban JJ et al (2017) MicroRNA-27a reduces mutant huntingtin aggregation in an in vitro model of Huntington’s disease. Biochem Biophys Res Commun 488(2):316–321 - PubMed - DOI
    1. Bassi S et al (2017) Epigenetics of Huntington’s disease. Adv Exp Med Biol 978:277–299 - PubMed - DOI

LinkOut - more resources