Huntington Disease: a Single-gene Degenerative Disorder of the Striatum

Huntington disease (HD) is an autosomal dominant, neurodegenerative disorder with a primary etiology of striatal pathology. The Huntingtin gene (HTT) has a unique feature of a DNA trinucleotide (triplet) repeat, with repeat length ranging from 10 to 35 in the normal population. Repeat lengths between 36 and 39 cause HD at reduced penetrance (some will get the disease, others won't) and when expanded to 40 or more repeats (mHTT), causes HD at full penetrance (every person with this length or beyond will definitely develop the disease). The symptoms of HD may be motor, cognitive, and psychiatric, and are consistent with the pathophysiology of frontostriatal circuitry malfunction. Expressed ubiquitously and throughout the entire life cycle (development through adulthood), mHTT causes initial dysfunction and eventual death of a specific cell population within the striatum. Although all areas of the brain are eventually affected, the primary pathology of the disease is regionally specific. As a single-gene disorder, HD has the distinction of having the potential of treatment that is aimed directly at the known pathogenic mechanism by gene silencing, providing hope for neuroprotection and ultimately, prevention.