Abstract
Autophagy is a nonspecific bulk degradation pathway for long-lived cytoplasmic proteins, protein complexes, or damaged organelles. This process is also a major degradation pathway for many aggregate-prone, disease-causing proteins associated with neurodegenerative disorders, such as mutant huntingtin in Huntington's disease. In this review, we discuss factors regulating the degradation of mutant huntingtin by autophagy. We also report the growing list of new drugs/pathways that upregulate autophagy to enhance the clearance of this mutant protein, as autophagy upregulation may be a tractable strategy for the treatment of Huntington's disease.
Publication types
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Research Support, Non-U.S. Gov't
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Review
MeSH terms
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Autophagy* / drug effects
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Humans
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Huntingtin Protein
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Huntington Disease / genetics
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Huntington Disease / immunology
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Huntington Disease / metabolism*
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Inositol / antagonists & inhibitors
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Lithium Compounds / pharmacology
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Mutation*
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Nerve Tissue Proteins / genetics
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Nerve Tissue Proteins / metabolism*
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Nuclear Proteins / genetics
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Nuclear Proteins / metabolism*
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Protein Kinases / metabolism
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Sirolimus / pharmacology
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TOR Serine-Threonine Kinases
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Trehalose / pharmacology
Substances
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HTT protein, human
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Huntingtin Protein
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Lithium Compounds
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Nerve Tissue Proteins
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Nuclear Proteins
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Inositol
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Trehalose
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Protein Kinases
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MTOR protein, human
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TOR Serine-Threonine Kinases
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Sirolimus