Cholesterol and HD

An investigation into how HD affects cholesterol homeostasis

Summary

Recent research has suggested that disruptions in cholesterol homeostasis could be important in explaining how the HD mutation causes neurodegeneration. However, cholesterol's role in the disease is still not fully understood. It might seem strange that HD has been linked to both intracellular cholesterol accumulation and depletion. One current hypothesis is that different stages of the disease are characterized by different disruptions to cholesterol homeostasis. Future research should shed light on the connections between these different disruptions and normal cholesterol activity.

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-A. Hepworth, 5/13/2007

Further Reading

• American Heart Association website at www.americanheart.org.
  A very user-friendly site with basic information about cholesterol and recommendations for a healthy lifestyle.
• Dietschy and Turley. "Cholesterol metabolism in the central nervous system during early development and in the mature animal." Journal of Lipid Research 2004. 45: 1375-1397.
  A review of cholesterol metabolism in the CNS.
• Trushina et al. "Altered huntingtin inhibits clathrin-independent endocytosis and causes accumulation of cholesterol in vitro and in vivo." Human Molecular Genetics 2006. 15: 3578-3591.
  A fairly technical article describing the research identifying HD's affect on endocytosis.
• Valenza et al. "Dysfunction of the cholesterol biosynthetic pathway in Huntington's disease." The Journal of Neuroscience 2005. 25:9932-9939.
  Another fairly technical article describing the research behind discoveries relating to cholesterol biosynthesis disruption.
• Valenza and Cattaneo. "Cholesterol dysfunction in neurodegenerative diseases: Is Huntington's disease in the list?" Progress in Neurobiology 2006. 80: 165-176.
  A scientific article providing a good overview of how cholesterol is tremendously important for CNS functioning and attempting to analyze the role cholesterol might play in HD.

Last Modified: 08/05/2008

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