1. Small molecule splicing modifiers with systemic HTT-lowering activity.
- Author
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Bhattacharyya A, Trotta CR, Narasimhan J, Wiedinger KJ, Li W, Effenberger KA, Woll MG, Jani MB, Risher N, Yeh S, Cheng Y, Sydorenko N, Moon YC, Karp GM, Weetall M, Dakka A, Gabbeta V, Naryshkin NA, Graci JD, Tripodi T Jr, Southwell A, Hayden M, Colacino JM, and Peltz SW
- Subjects
- Animals, Central Nervous System drug effects, Central Nervous System metabolism, Disease Models, Animal, Humans, Huntington Disease metabolism, Mice, RNA Stability drug effects, Trinucleotide Repeat Expansion drug effects, Huntingtin Protein genetics, Huntingtin Protein metabolism, Huntington Disease drug therapy, Huntington Disease genetics, RNA Splicing drug effects, Small Molecule Libraries administration & dosage
- Abstract
Huntington's disease (HD) is a hereditary neurodegenerative disorder caused by expansion of cytosine-adenine-guanine (CAG) trinucleotide repeats in the huntingtin (HTT) gene. Consequently, the mutant protein is ubiquitously expressed and drives pathogenesis of HD through a toxic gain-of-function mechanism. Animal models of HD have demonstrated that reducing huntingtin (HTT) protein levels alleviates motor and neuropathological abnormalities. Investigational drugs aim to reduce HTT levels by repressing HTT transcription, stability or translation. These drugs require invasive procedures to reach the central nervous system (CNS) and do not achieve broad CNS distribution. Here, we describe the identification of orally bioavailable small molecules with broad distribution throughout the CNS, which lower HTT expression consistently throughout the CNS and periphery through selective modulation of pre-messenger RNA splicing. These compounds act by promoting the inclusion of a pseudoexon containing a premature termination codon (stop-codon psiExon), leading to HTT mRNA degradation and reduction of HTT levels., (© 2021. The Author(s).)
- Published
- 2021
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