A fully humanized transgenic mouse model of Huntington disease

TY - JOUR

T1 - A fully humanized transgenic mouse model of Huntington disease

AU - Southwell, Amber L

AU - Warby, Simon C

AU - Carroll, Jeffrey B

AU - Doty, Crystal N

AU - Skotte, Niels H

AU - Zhang, Weining

AU - Villanueva, Erika B

AU - Kovalik, Vlad

AU - Xie, Yuanyun

AU - Pouladi, Mahmoud A

AU - Collins, Jennifer A

AU - Yang, X William

AU - Franciosi, Sonia

AU - Hayden, Michael R

PY - 2013/1/1

Y1 - 2013/1/1

N2 - Silencing the mutant huntingtin gene (muHTT) is a direct and simple therapeutic strategy for the treatment of Huntington disease (HD) in principle. However, targeting the HD mutation presents challenges because it is an expansion of a common genetic element (a CAG tract) that is found throughout the genome. Moreover, the HTT protein is important for neuronal health throughout life, and silencing strategies that also reduce the wild-type HTT allele may not be well tolerated during the long-term treatment of HD. Several HTT silencing strategies are in development that target genetic sites in HTT that are outside of the CAG expansion, including HD mutation-linked single-nucleotide polymorphisms and the HTT promoter. Preclinical testing of these genetic therapies has required the development of a new mouse model of HD that carries these human-specific genetic targets. To generate a fully humanized mouse model of HD, we have cross-bred BACHD and YAC18 on the Hdh(-/-) background. The resulting line, Hu97/18, is the first murine model of HD that fully genetically recapitulates human HD having two human HTT genes, no mouse Hdh genes and heterozygosity of the HD mutation. We find that Hu97/18 mice display many of the behavioral changes associated with HD including motor, psychiatric and cognitive deficits, as well as canonical neuropathological abnormalities. This mouse line will be useful for gaining additional insights into the disease mechanisms of HD as well as for testing genetic therapies targeting human HTT.

AB - Silencing the mutant huntingtin gene (muHTT) is a direct and simple therapeutic strategy for the treatment of Huntington disease (HD) in principle. However, targeting the HD mutation presents challenges because it is an expansion of a common genetic element (a CAG tract) that is found throughout the genome. Moreover, the HTT protein is important for neuronal health throughout life, and silencing strategies that also reduce the wild-type HTT allele may not be well tolerated during the long-term treatment of HD. Several HTT silencing strategies are in development that target genetic sites in HTT that are outside of the CAG expansion, including HD mutation-linked single-nucleotide polymorphisms and the HTT promoter. Preclinical testing of these genetic therapies has required the development of a new mouse model of HD that carries these human-specific genetic targets. To generate a fully humanized mouse model of HD, we have cross-bred BACHD and YAC18 on the Hdh(-/-) background. The resulting line, Hu97/18, is the first murine model of HD that fully genetically recapitulates human HD having two human HTT genes, no mouse Hdh genes and heterozygosity of the HD mutation. We find that Hu97/18 mice display many of the behavioral changes associated with HD including motor, psychiatric and cognitive deficits, as well as canonical neuropathological abnormalities. This mouse line will be useful for gaining additional insights into the disease mechanisms of HD as well as for testing genetic therapies targeting human HTT.

KW - Animals

KW - Disease Models, Animal

KW - Gene Silencing

KW - Humans

KW - Huntington Disease

KW - Mice

KW - Mice, Transgenic

KW - Mutation

KW - Polymorphism, Single Nucleotide

KW - Promoter Regions, Genetic

KW - Rotarod Performance Test

U2 - 10.1093/hmg/dds397

DO - 10.1093/hmg/dds397

M3 - Journal article

C2 - 23001568

SN - 0964-6906

VL - 22

SP - 18

EP - 34

JO - Human Molecular Genetics

JF - Human Molecular Genetics

IS - 1

ER -