Huntington’s Disease Involves Muscle Cell Malfunction, Too

Huntington’s disease, a degenerative genetic disorder that usually emerges in early middle age, has long been considered a neurological disease. Scientists had assumed that the uncontrollable muscle movements associated with the disease were due to brain cells losing function. New research shows that muscle cells in mice carrying the RNA coding error associated with the disease also go awry. Diseased cells responded at a lower threshold than normal muscle cells to electrical pulses similar to a nerve cell firing, and some even responded long after such low-level pulses. The findings may open new lines of research into understanding and treating a disease for which there are currently no effective treatments.

Source: NIGMS Biomedical Beat - June 20, 2013 Category: Research Source Type: news