Gene/Protein Disease Symptom Drug Enzyme Compound
Pivot Concepts:   Target Concepts:
Query: UMLS:C0153640 (Cerebellum)
1,777 document(s) hit in 31,850,051 MEDLINE articles (0.00 seconds)

Polyglutamine (polyQ) diseases, including several types of spinocerebellar ataxias and Huntington's disease (HD), are dominantly inherited neurodegenerative disorders caused by the expansion of the glutamine-coding CAG repeat in the open reading frame of the disease gene. Apart from being translated to produce toxic elongated polyQ domain-containing disease proteins, transcribed expanded CAG RNAs per se also exert toxicity in polyQ degeneration. In the R6/2 HD transgenic mouse model, expanded mutant Huntingtin (Htt) transcripts were found to physically interact with nucleolin (NCL), a nucleolar protein that plays a crucial role in ribosome biogenesis. We further demonstrated that mutant Htt transcripts deprived NCL from binding onto the Upstream Control Element (UCE) of the ribosomal RNA (rRNA) promoter. This resulted in UCE hypermethylation which abolished the binding of the transcription factor Upstream Binding Factor to UCE and subsequently led to down-regulation of pre-45s rRNA transcription. We also found that the p53/mitochondria-dependent nucleolar stress cell death pathway was activated in polyQ diseases. Ribosomal RNA transcription dysfunction has been reported in other types of neurodegenerative disorders including Alzheimer's disease; it is anticipated that nucleolar stress is one common pathogenic signaling mechanism shared by different forms of neurodegeneration.
Cerebellum 2013 Jun
PMID:Expression of expanded CAG transcripts triggers nucleolar stress in Huntington's disease. 2331 9

Cux1, also known as Cutl1, CDP or Cut is a homeodomain transcription factor implicated in the regulation of normal and oncogenic development in diverse peripheral tissues and organs. We studied the expression and functional role of Cux1 in cerebellar granule cells and medulloblastoma. Cux1 is robustly expressed in proliferating granule cell precursors and in postmitotic, migrating granule cells. Expression is lost as postmigratory granule cells mature. Moreover, Cux1 is also strongly expressed in a well-established mouse model of medulloblastoma. In contrast, expression of CUX1 in human medulloblastoma tissue samples is lower than in normal fetal cerebellum. In these tumors, CUX1 expression tightly correlates with a set of genes which, when mapped on a global protein-protein interaction dataset, yields a tight network that constitutes a cell cycle control signature and may be related to p53 and the DNA damage response pathway. Antisense-mediated reduction of CUX1 levels in two human medulloblastoma cell lines led to a decrease in proliferation and altered motility. The developmental expression of Cux1 in the cerebellum and its action in cell lines support a role in granule cell and medulloblastoma proliferation. Its expression in human medulloblastoma shifts that perspective, suggesting that CUX1 is part of a network involved in cell cycle control and maintenance of DNA integrity. The constituents of this network may be rational targets to therapeutically approach medulloblastomas.
Cerebellum 2014 Dec
PMID:The transcription factor Cux1 in cerebellar granule cell development and medulloblastoma pathogenesis. 2509 34