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- Title
Activation of mTOR Ameliorates Fragile X Premutation rCGG Repeat-Mediated Neurodegeneration.
- Authors
Lin, Yunting; Tang, Chengyuan; He, Hua; Duan, Ranhui
- Abstract
Fragile X associated tremor/ataxia syndrome (FXTAS) is a late onset neurodegenerative disorder caused by aberrant expansion of CGG repeats in 5′ UTR of FMR1 gene. The elevated mRNA confers a toxic gain-of-function thought to be the critical event of pathogenesis. Expressing rCGG90 repeats of the human FMR1 5′UTR in Drosophila is sufficient to induce neurodegeneration. Rapamycin has been demonstrated to attenuate neurotoxicity by inducing autophagy in various animal models of neurodegenerative diseases. Surprisingly, we observed rapamycin exacerbated rCGG90-induced neurodegenerative phenotypes through an autophagy-independent mechanism. CGG90 expression levels of FXTAS flies exposed to rapamycin presented no significant differences. We further demonstrated that activation of the mammalian target of rapamycin (mTOR) signaling could suppress neurodegeneration of FXTAS. These findings indicate that rapamycin will exacerbate neurodegeneration, and that enhancing autophagy is insufficient to alleviate neurotoxicity in FXTAS. Moreover, these results suggest mTOR and its downstream molecules as new therapeutic targets for FXTAS by showing significant protection against neurodegeneration.
- Subjects
MTOR protein; FRAGILE X syndrome; NEURODEGENERATION; MESSENGER RNA; GENE expression; PHENOTYPES; ANIMAL models in research
- Publication
PLoS ONE, 2013, Vol 8, Issue 4, p1
- ISSN
1932-6203
- Publication type
Article
- DOI
10.1371/journal.pone.0062572