The lysosomal degradation pathway known as autophagy has an essential homeostatic role in controlling the quality of the cytoplasm. However, this pathway has also been implicated in the pathology of an array of human disorders. Here, Rubinsztein and colleagues provide an overview of the mechanisms and regulation of autophagy, discuss the role of this pathway in disease and highlight potential strategies for therapeutic modulation.

/pdf/autophagy-modulation-as-a-potential-therapeutic-target-for-2jy1kcxaer.pdf

Autophagy modulation as a potential therapeutic target for diverse diseases

Loss of protein homeostasis (proteostasis) is a common feature of aging and disease that is characterized by the appearance of nonnative protein aggregates in various tissues. Protein aggregation is routinely suppressed by the proteostasis network (PN), a collection of macromolecular machines that operate in diverse ways to maintain proteome integrity across subcellular compartments and between tissues to ensure a healthy life span. Here, we review the composition, function, and organizational properties of the PN in the context of individual cells and entire organisms and discuss the mechanisms by which disruption of the PN, and related stress response pathways, contributes to the initiation and progression of disease. We explore emerging evidence that disease susceptibility arises from early changes in the composition and activity of the PN and propose that a more complete understanding of the temporal and spatial properties of the PN will enhance our ability to develop effective treatments for protein conformational diseases.

/pdf/the-biology-of-proteostasis-in-aging-and-disease-3j0mswsbyw.pdf

The Biology of Proteostasis in Aging and Disease

The heat shock transcription factors (HSFs) were discovered over 30 years ago as direct transcriptional activators of genes regulated by thermal stress, encoding heat shock proteins. The accepted paradigm posited that HSFs exclusively activate the expression of protein chaperones in response to conditions that cause protein misfolding by recognizing a simple promoter binding site referred to as a heat shock element. However, we now realize that the mammalian family of HSFs comprises proteins that independently or in concert drive combinatorial gene regulation events that activate or repress transcription in different contexts. Advances in our understanding of HSF structure, post-translational modifications and the breadth of HSF-regulated target genes have revealed exciting new mechanisms that modulate HSFs and shed new light on their roles in physiology and pathology. For example, the ability of HSF1 to protect cells from proteotoxicity and cell death is impaired in neurodegenerative diseases but can be exploited by cancer cells to support their growth, survival and metastasis. These new insights into HSF structure, function and regulation should facilitate the development tof new disease therapeutics to manipulate this transcription factor family.

Regulation of heat shock transcription factors and their roles in physiology and disease.

https://www.cell.com/trends/cell-biology/pdf/S0962-8924(14)00086-5.pdf

Proteostasis impairment in protein-misfolding and -aggregation diseases

A hallmark of neurodegenerative proteinopathies is the formation of misfolded protein aggregates that cause cellular toxicity and contribute to cellular proteostatic collapse. Therapeutic options are currently being explored that target different steps in the production and processing of proteins implicated in neurodegenerative disease, including synthesis, chaperone-assisted folding and trafficking, and degradation via the proteasome and autophagy pathways. Other therapies, like mTOR inhibitors and activators of the heat shock response, can rebalance the entire proteostatic network. However, there are major challenges that impact the development of novel therapies, including incomplete knowledge of druggable disease targets and their mechanism of action as well as a lack of biomarkers to monitor disease progression and therapeutic response. A notable development is the creation of collaborative ecosystems that include patients, clinicians, basic and translational researchers, foundations and regulatory agencies to promote scientific rigor and clinical data to accelerate the development of therapies that prevent, reverse or delay the progression of neurodegenerative proteinopathies.

/pdf/protein-misfolding-in-neurodegenerative-diseases-1euhk5se63.pdf

Protein misfolding in neurodegenerative diseases: implications and strategies

Huntington disease (HD) is a devastating neurodegenerative disorder for which there are no disease-modifying treatments. Previous studies have proposed that activation of the heat shock response (HSR) via the transcription factor heat shock factor 1 (HSF1) may be of therapeutic benefit. However, the effect of disease progression on the HSR and the therapeutic potential of this pathway are currently unknown. Here, we used a brain-penetrating HSP90 inhibitor and physiological, molecular, and behavioral readouts to demonstrate that pharmacological activation of HSF1 improves huntingtin aggregate load, motor performance, and other HD-related phenotypes in the R6/2 mouse model of HD. However, the beneficial effects of this treatment were transient and diminished with disease progression. Molecular analyses to understand the transient nature of these effects revealed altered chromatin architecture, reduced HSF1 binding, and impaired HSR accompanied disease progression in both the R6/2 transgenic and HdhQ150 knockin mouse models of HD. Taken together, our findings reveal that the HSR, a major inducible regulator of protein homeostasis and longevity, is disrupted in HD. Consequently, pharmacological induction of HSF1 as a therapeutic approach to HD is more complex than was previously anticipated.

/pdf/altered-chromatin-architecture-underlies-progressive-38xwy521v4.pdf

Altered chromatin architecture underlies progressive impairment of the heat shock response in mouse models of Huntington disease

Although previous studies of Huntington's disease (HD) have addressed many potential mechanisms of striatal neuron dysfunction and death, it is also known, based on clinical findings, that cortical function is dramatically disrupted in HD. With respect to disease etiology, however, the specific molecular and neuronal circuit bases for the cortical effects of mutant huntingtin (htt) have remained largely unknown. In the present work, we studied the relationship between the molecular effects of mutant htt fragments in cortical cells and the corresponding behavior of cortical neuron microcircuits by using a novel cellular model of HD. We observed that a transcript-selective diminution in activity-dependent brain-derived neurotrophic factor (BDNF) expression preceded the onset of a synaptic connectivity deficit in ex vivo cortical networks, which manifested as decreased spontaneous collective burst-firing behavior measured by multielectrode array substrates. Decreased BDNF expression was determined to be a significant contributor to network-level dysfunction, as shown by the ability of exogenous BDNF to ameliorate cortical microcircuit burst firing. The molecular determinants of the dysregulation of activity-dependent BDNF expression by mutant htt seem to be distinct from previously elucidated mechanisms, because they do not involve known neuron-restrictive silencer factor/RE1-silencing transcription factor-regulated promoter sequences but instead result from dysregulation of BDNF exon IV and VI transcription. These data elucidate a novel HD-related deficit in BDNF gene regulation as a plausible mechanism of cortical neuron hypoconnectivity and cortical function deficits in HD. Moreover, the novel model paradigm established here is well suited to further mechanistic and drug screening research applications.

http://jpet.aspetjournals.org/content/jpet/early/2010/07/12/jpet.110.167551.full.pdf

Diminished Activity-Dependent Brain-Derived Neurotrophic Factor Expression Underlies Cortical Neuron Microcircuit Hypoconnectivity Resulting from Exposure to Mutant Huntingtin Fragments

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Altered chromatin architecture underlies progressive impairment of the heat shock response in mouse models of Huntington disease

Diminished Activity-Dependent Brain-Derived Neurotrophic Factor Expression Underlies Cortical Neuron Microcircuit Hypoconnectivity Resulting from Exposure to Mutant Huntingtin Fragments