Yeast offers clue to Huntington’s

Scientists have uncovered a process thought to be implicated in Huntington’s disease using simple baker’s yeast and cutting-edge genetic techniques.

Simple baker’s yeast offers clues to neurodegenerative disease

A collaborative study led by the University of Leicester has shown that protective genes involved in translation – a cellular process where mRNA is decoded by the ribosome to produce specific proteins – are implicated in Huntington’s disease.

Baker’s yeast is ideal for genome-wide studies because it is well-characterised and has powerful and facile genetics. This makes them ideal for studying mechanisms underlying disease pathology and for identifying promising drug targets for neurodegenerative disorders.

“By clarifying the genes and cellular pathways involved in these diseases we hope to identify novel strategies for treatment and therapy of these disorders,” lead author Flaviano Giorgini said. “In our work we use simple, yet powerful genetic organisms such as baker’s yeast and fruit flies to model aspects of these devastating diseases.”

Giorgini and his colleagues used novel functional genomics profiling to identify genes which protect the yeast from symptoms of Huntington’s disease and Parkinson’s disease. Using computational approaches, they uncovered a network of interactions among these genes which shed light on the mechanisms underlying the disease.

“Our research has taken advantage of cutting edge genomics approaches using a simple model organism to identify a novel area for potential therapeutic interventions for Huntington’s disease,” Giorgini said.

“If our findings are validated by further studies, it might suggest a novel therapeutics approach for this devastating disorder – which is critical as there are currently no treatments for onset or progression of symptoms,” he added.

Recent work has indicated that pharmacological modulation of translation may represent a promising avenue for treating Parkinson’s disease, and this work suggests similar drug treatment may be beneficial in Huntington’s disease.
The work – carried out with scientists from the University of Lisbon and University of California at San Francisco – was funded by the Medical Research Council.