Clearance of mutant huntingtin

Mutant huntingtin (htt) carries an expanded polyglutamine (polyQ) repeat (>36 glutamines) in its N-terminal region, which leads htt to become misfolded and kill neuronal cells in Huntington disease (HD). The cytotoxicity of N-terminal mutant htt fragments is evident by severe neurological phenotypes of transgenic mice that express these htt fragments. Clearance of mutant htt is primarily mediated by the ubiquitin-proteasomal sysmtem (UPS) and autophagy. However, the relative efficiency of these two systems to remove toxic forms of mutant htt has not been rigorously compared. Using cellular and mouse models of HD, we found that inhibiting the UPS leads to a greater accumulation of mutant htt than inhibiting autophagy. Moreover, N-terminal mutant htt fragments, but not full-length mutant htt, accumulate in the HD mouse brains after inhibiting the UPS. These findings suggest that the UPS is more efficient than autophagy to remove N-terminal mutant htt.