Potassium channel dysfunction in neurons and astrocytes in Huntington's disease

Research output: Contribution to journalReviewResearchpeer-review

Huntington's disease (HD) is a late-onset fatal neurodegenerative disease, characterized by progressive movement disorders, psychiatric symptoms, and cognitive impairment. The cytosine-adenine-guanine (CAG) triplet expansion encoding glutamine present in the protein huntingtin (Htt), produces widespread neuronal and glial pathology. Mutant huntingtin (mHtt) nuclear aggregates are the primary cause of cortical and striatal neuron degeneration, neuronal inflammation, apoptosis and eventual cell loss. The precise mechanisms underlying the pathogenesis of neurodegeneration in HD remain poorly understood and HD patients have no current cure. Potassium channels are widely expressed in most cell types. In neurons, they play a crucial role in setting the resting membrane potential, mediating the rapid repolarization phase of the action potential and controlling sub-threshold oscillations of membrane potentials. In glial cells, their major contributions are maintaining the resting membrane potential and buffering extracellular K+ . Thus, potassium channels have an essential function in both physiological and pathological brain conditions. This review summarizes recent progress on potassium channels involved in the pathology of HD by using different HD mouse models. Exploring the dysfunction of potassium channels in the brain illustrates new approaches for targeting this channel for the treatment of HD.

Original languageEnglish
JournalCNS Neuroscience and Therapeutics
Volume24
Issue number4
Pages (from-to)311-318
Number of pages8
ISSN1755-5930
DOIs
Publication statusPublished - 2018
Externally publishedYes

Bibliographical note

© 2018 John Wiley & Sons Ltd.

    Research areas

  • Animals, Astrocytes/metabolism, Humans, Huntington Disease/metabolism, Neurons/metabolism, Potassium Channels/metabolism

ID: 324308190