Age of Onset of Huntington's Disease in Carriers of Reduced Penetrance Alleles

2021 ◽  
Author(s):  
Erin I. McDonnell ◽  
Yuanjia Wang ◽  
Jill Goldman ◽  
Karen Marder
2021 ◽  
Author(s):  
Katalin Despotov ◽  
Dénes Zádori ◽  
Gábor Veres ◽  
Katalin Jakab ◽  
Gabreilla Gárdián ◽  
...  

Abstract Background: Recent advances in therapeutic options may prevent deterioration related to Huntington’s disease (HD), even at the pre-symptomatic stage. Be that as it may, a well-characterized patient population is essential for screening and monitoring outcome. Accordingly, the aim of this study was to describe the characteristics of a Hungarian subpopulation of HD patients and mutation carriers diagnosed at the University of Szeged. Methods: We conducted a search for International Classification of Diseases (ICD) code G10H0 in the local medical database for the period of 1 January 1998 to 31 December 2018. Results: We identified 90 HD cases (male: 45, female: 45) and 34 asymptomatic carriers (male: 15, female: 19). The median age of onset was 45 years (range: 16-79). There were 3 cases of juvenile onset (3.3%), and 7 of late disease onset (7.8%). The median repeat length was 43 (range: 36-70) for the pathological and 19 for the non-pathological alleles (range: 9-35). 17.5% of the pathological alleles were in the decreased penetrance range, while 7% of non-pathological alleles were intermediate. Conclusions: The genetic and clinical features of the population examined in the present study were in line with the previous Hungarian study, as well as with international literature. The exceptions were the higher ratio of reduced penetrance and intermediate alleles.


2020 ◽  
Author(s):  
Katalin Despotov ◽  
Dénes Zádori ◽  
Gábor Veres ◽  
Katalin Jakab ◽  
Gabreilla Gárdián ◽  
...  

Abstract Background: recent advances in the therapeutic options may prevent deterioration related to Huntington’s disease (HD) even at the presymptomatic stage. However, a well-characterized patient population is essential for screening and outcome monitoring as well. Accordingly, the aim of this study was to describe the characteristics of a Hungarian subpopulation of HD patients and mutation carriers diagnosed at the University of Szeged.Methods: we conducted a search for International Classification of Diseases (ICD) code G10H0 in the local medical database for the period between 1 January 1998 and 31 December 2018.Results: we identified 90 HD cases (male: 45, female: 45) and 34 asymptomatic carriers (male: 15, female: 19). The median age of onset was 45 years (range: 16-79). There were 3 cases of juvenile (3.3%), and 7 of late disease onset (7.8%). The median repeat length was 43 (range: 36-70) for the pathological and 19 for the non-pathological alleles (range: 9-35). 17.5% of the pathological alleles was in the decreased penetrance range, while 7% of non-pathological alleles was intermediate.Conclusions: the genetic and clinical features of the population examined in present study was in line with the previous Hungarian study as well as with international literature, the exceptions being the higher ratio of reduced penetrance and intermediate alleles.


BMC Neurology ◽  
2021 ◽  
Vol 21 (1) ◽  
Author(s):  
Katalin Despotov ◽  
Dénes Zádori ◽  
Gábor Veres ◽  
Katalin Jakab ◽  
Gabriella Gárdián ◽  
...  

Abstract Background Recent advances in therapeutic options may prevent deterioration related to Huntington’s disease (HD), even at the pre-symptomatic stage. Be that as it may, a well-characterized patient population is essential for screening and monitoring outcome. Accordingly, the aim of this study was to describe the characteristics of a Hungarian subpopulation of HD patients and mutation carriers diagnosed at the University of Szeged. Methods We conducted a search for International Classification of Diseases (ICD) code G10H0 in the local medical database for the period of 1 January 1998 to 31 December 2018. Results We identified 90 HD cases (male: 45, female: 45) and 34 asymptomatic carriers (male: 15, female: 19). The median age of onset was 45 years (range: 16–79). There were 3 cases of juvenile onset (3.3%), and 7 of late disease onset (7.8%). The median repeat length was 43 (range: 36–70) for the pathological and 19 for the non-pathological alleles (range: 9–35). 17.5% of the pathological alleles were in the decreased penetrance range, while 7% of non-pathological alleles were intermediate. Conclusions The genetic and clinical features of the population examined in the present study were in line with the previous Hungarian study, as well as with international literature. The exceptions were the higher ratio of reduced penetrance and intermediate alleles.


2009 ◽  
Vol 24 (S1) ◽  
pp. 1-1
Author(s):  
J. Maia

Huntington's Disease (HD) is an inherited autosomal dominant disorder characterized by motor, cognitive and psychiatric symptomatology, being considered a paradigmatic neuropsychiatric disorder that includes all three components of the "Triadic Syndromes": dyskinesia, dementia and depression.Firstly described in 1872 as an "Hereditary Chorea" by George Huntington only in 1993 was its responsible gene identified. A person who inherits the HD gene will sooner or later develop the disease. the age of onset, early signs and rate of disease progression vary greatly from person to person.Neuropsychiatric symptoms are an integral part of HD and have been considered the earliest markers of the disease, presenting sometimes more than 10 years before a formal diagnosis is done. Patients may experience dysphoria, mood swings, agitation, irritability, hostile outbursts, psychotic symptoms and deep bouts of depression with suicidal ideation. Personality change is reported in 48% of the cases, with the paranoid subtype being described as the most prevalent. the clinical case presented illustrates a case of HD which started with insidious psychiatric symptoms and an important personality change.Despite a wide number of medications being prescribed to help control emotional, movement and behaviour problems, there is still no treatment to stop or reverse the course of the disease. Furthermore, psychiatric manifestations are often amenable to treatment, and relief of these symptoms may provide significant improvement in patient's and caregivers quality of life.A greater awarness of psychiatric manifestations of HD is essential to an earlier diagnosis and an optimized therapeutic approach.


2020 ◽  
Vol 10 (9) ◽  
pp. 575 ◽  
Author(s):  
Jordan L. Schultz ◽  
Amelia D. Moser ◽  
Peg C. Nopoulos

There is a known negative association between cytosine–adenine–guanine (CAG) repeat length and the age of motor onset (AMO) in adult-onset Huntington’s Disease (AOHD). This relationship is less clear in patients with juvenile-onset Huntington’s disease (JOHD), however, given the rarity of this patient population. The aim of this study was to investigate this relationship amongst a relatively large group of patients with JOHD using data from the Kids-JOHD study. Additionally, we analyzed data from the Enroll-HD platform and the Predict-HD study to compare the relationship between CAG repeat length and AMO amongst patients with AOHD to that amongst patients with JOHD using linear regression models. In line with previous reports, the variance in AMO that was predicted by CAG repeat length was 59% (p < 0.0001) in the Predict-HD study and 57% from the Enroll-HD platform (p < 0.0001). However, CAG repeat length predicted 84% of the variance in AMO amongst participants from the Kids-JOHD study (p < 0.0001). These results indicate that there may be a stronger relationship between CAG repeat length and AMO in patients with JOHD as compared to patients with AOHD. These results provide additional information that may help to model disease progression of JOHD, which is beneficial for the planning and implementation of future clinical trials.


2020 ◽  
Vol 21 (19) ◽  
pp. 7414
Author(s):  
Christiana C. Christodoulou ◽  
Margarita Zachariou ◽  
Marios Tomazou ◽  
Evangelos Karatzas ◽  
Christiana A. Demetriou ◽  
...  

Huntington’s disease is a rare neurodegenerative disease caused by a cytosine–adenine–guanine (CAG) trinucleotide expansion in the Huntingtin (HTT) gene. Although Huntington’s disease (HD) is well studied, the pathophysiological mechanisms, genes and metabolites involved in HD remain poorly understood. Systems bioinformatics can reveal synergistic relationships among different omics levels and enables the integration of biological data. It allows for the overall understanding of biological mechanisms, pathways, genes and metabolites involved in HD. The purpose of this study was to identify the differentially expressed genes (DEGs), pathways and metabolites as well as observe how these biological terms differ between the pre-symptomatic and symptomatic HD stages. A publicly available dataset from the Gene Expression Omnibus (GEO) was analyzed to obtain the DEGs for each HD stage, and gene co-expression networks were obtained for each HD stage. Network rewiring, highlights the nodes that change most their connectivity with their neighbors and infers their possible implication in the transition between different states. The CACNA1I gene was the mostly highly rewired node among pre-symptomatic and symptomatic HD network. Furthermore, we identified AF198444 to be common between the rewired genes and DEGs of symptomatic HD. CNTN6, DEK, LTN1, MST4, ZFYVE16, CEP135, DCAKD, MAP4K3, NUPL1 and RBM15 between the DEGs of pre-symptomatic and DEGs of symptomatic HD and CACNA1I, DNAJB14, EPS8L3, HSDL2, SNRPD3, SOX12, ACLY, ATF2, BAG5, ERBB4, FOCAD, GRAMD1C, LIN7C, MIR22, MTHFR, NABP1, NRG2, OTC, PRAMEF12, SLC30A10, STAG2 and Y16709 between the rewired genes and DEGs of pre-symptomatic HD. The proteins encoded by these genes are involved in various biological pathways such as phosphatidylinositol-4,5-bisphosphate 3-kinase activity, cAMP response element-binding protein binding, protein tyrosine kinase activity, voltage-gated calcium channel activity, ubiquitin protein ligase activity, adenosine triphosphate (ATP) binding, and protein serine/threonine kinase. Additionally, prominent molecular pathways for each HD stage were then obtained, and metabolites related to each pathway for both disease stages were identified. The transforming growth factor beta (TGF-β) signaling (pre-symptomatic and symptomatic stages of the disease), calcium (Ca2+) signaling (pre-symptomatic), dopaminergic synapse pathway (symptomatic HD patients) and Hippo signaling (pre-symptomatic) pathways were identified. The in silico metabolites we identified include Ca2+, inositol 1,4,5-trisphosphate, sphingosine 1-phosphate, dopamine, homovanillate and L-tyrosine. The genes, pathways and metabolites identified for each HD stage can provide a better understanding of the mechanisms that become altered in each disease stage. Our results can guide the development of therapies that may target the altered genes and metabolites of the perturbed pathways, leading to an improvement in clinical symptoms and hopefully a delay in the age of onset.


2016 ◽  
Vol 2016 ◽  
pp. 1-5 ◽  
Author(s):  
Svetlana A. Ivanova ◽  
Anton J. M. Loonen

A serendipitous pharmacogenetic finding links the vulnerability to developing levodopa-induced dyskinesia to the age of onset of Huntington’s disease. Huntington’s disease is caused by a polyglutamate expansion of the protein huntingtin. Aberrant huntingtin is less capable of binding to a member of membrane-associated guanylate kinase family (MAGUKs): postsynaptic density- (PSD-) 95. This leaves more PSD-95 available to stabilize NR2B subunit carrying NMDA receptors in the synaptic membrane. This results in increased excitotoxicity for which particularly striatal medium spiny neurons from the indirect extrapyramidal pathway are sensitive. In Parkinson’s disease the sensitivity for excitotoxicity is related to increased oxidative stress due to genetically determined abnormal metabolism of dopamine or related products. This probably also increases the sensitivity of medium spiny neurons for exogenous levodopa. Particularly the combination of increased oxidative stress due to aberrant dopamine metabolism, increased vulnerability to NMDA induced excitotoxicity, and the particular sensitivity of indirect pathway medium spiny neurons for this excitotoxicity may explain the observed increased prevalence of levodopa-induced dyskinesia.


Author(s):  
Carlo Rinaldi ◽  
Elena Salvatore ◽  
Ilaria Giordano ◽  
Sara De Matteis ◽  
Tecla Tucci ◽  
...  

Background:The primary aim of the present study was to determine the survival rates and identify predictors of disease duration in a cohort of Huntington's disease (HD) patients from Southern Italy.Methods:All medical records of HD patients followed between 1977 and 2008 at the Department of Neurological Sciences of Federico II University in Naples were retrospectively reviewed and 135 patients were enrolled in the analysis. At the time of data collection, 41 patients were deceased (19 males and 22 females) with a mean ± SD age at death of 56.6 ± 14.9 years (range 18-83).Results:The median survival time was 20 years (95% CI: 18.3-21.7). Cox regression analysis showed that the number of CAG in the expanded allele (HR 1.09 for 1 point triplet increase, p=0.002) and age of onset (HR 1.05 for 1 point year increase, p=0.022) were independent and significant predictors of lower survival rates.Conclusions:We believe that these findings are important for a better understanding of the natural history of the disease and may be relevant in designing future therapeutic trials.


2013 ◽  
Vol 2 (1) ◽  
pp. 107-124 ◽  
Author(s):  
Angelica Vittori ◽  
Michael Orth ◽  
Raymund A. C. Roos ◽  
Tiago F. Outeiro ◽  
Flaviano Giorgini ◽  
...  

Sign in / Sign up

Export Citation Format

Share Document