0000000000347698
AUTHOR
Changwei Chen
Pharmacological disruption of the MID1/α4 interaction reduces mutant Huntingtin levels in primary neuronal cultures.
Expression of mutant Huntingtin (HTT) protein is central to the pathophysiology of Huntington's Disease (HD). The E3 ubiquitin ligase MID1 appears to have a key role in facilitating translation of the mutant HTT mRNA suggesting that interference with the function of this complex could be an attractive therapeutic approach. Here we describe a peptide that is able to disrupt the interaction between MID1 and the α4 protein, a regulatory subunit of protein phosphatase 2A (PP2A). By fusing this peptide to a sequence from the HIV-TAT protein we demonstrate that the peptide can disrupt the interaction within cells and show that this results in a decrease in levels of ribosomal S6 phosphorylation a…
Translation of HTT mRNA with expanded CAG repeats is regulated by the MID1-PP2A protein complex.
Expansion of CAG repeats is a common feature of various neurodegenerative disorders, including Huntington's disease. Here we show that expanded CAG repeats bind to a translation regulatory protein complex containing MID1, protein phosphatase 2A and 40S ribosomal S6 kinase. Binding of the MID1-protein phosphatase 2A protein complex increases with CAG repeat size and stimulates translation of the CAG repeat expansion containing messenger RNA in a MID1-, protein phosphatase 2A- and mammalian target of rapamycin-dependent manner. Our data indicate that pathological CAG repeat expansions upregulate protein translation leading to an overproduction of aberrant protein and suggest that the MID1-com…