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α-Synuclein and mutant huntingtin are the major constituents of the intracellular aggregates that characterize the pathology of Parkinson's disease (PD) and Huntington's disease (HD), respectively. α-Synuclein is likely to be a major contributor to PD, since overexpression of this protein resulting from genetic triplication is sufficient to cause human forms of PD. We have previously demonstrated that wild-type α-synuclein overexpression impairs macroautophagy in mammalian cells and in transgenic mice. Overexpression of human wild-type α-synuclein in cells and Drosophila models of HD worsens the disease phenotype. Here, we examined whether α-synuclein overexpression also worsens the HD phenotype in a mammalian system using two widely used N-terminal HD mouse models (R6/1 and N171-82Q). We also tested the effects of α-synuclein deletion in the same N-terminal HD mouse models, as well as assessed the effects of α-synuclein deletion on macroautophagy in mouse brains. We show that overexpression of wild-type α-synuclein in both mouse models of HD enhances the onset of tremors and has some influence on the rate of weight loss. On the other hand, α-synuclein deletion in both HD models increases autophagosome numbers and this is associated with a delayed onset of tremors and weight loss, two of the most prominent endophenotypes of the HD-like disease in mice. We have therefore established a functional link between these two aggregate-prone proteins in mammals and provide further support for the model that wild-type α-synuclein negatively regulates autophagy even at physiological levels.

Genetically precise models of Huntington's disease (HD), Hdh CAG knock-in mice, are powerful systems in which phenotypes associated with expanded HD CAG repeats are studied. To dissect the genetic pathways that underlie such phenotypes, we have generated Hdh(Q111) knock-in mouse lines that are congenic for C57BL/6, FVB/N and 129Sv inbred genetic backgrounds and investigated four Hdh(Q111) phenotypes in these three genetic backgrounds: the intergenerational instability of the HD CAG repeat and the striatal-specific somatic HD CAG repeat expansion, nuclear mutant huntingtin accumulation and intranuclear inclusion formation. Our results reveal increased intergenerational and somatic instability of the HD CAG repeat in C57BL/6 and FVB/N backgrounds compared with the 129Sv background. The accumulation of nuclear mutant huntingtin and the formation of intranuclear inclusions were fastest in the C57BL/6 background, slowest in the 129Sv background and intermediate in the FVB/N background. Inbred strain-specific differences were independent of constitutive HD CAG repeat size and did not correlate with Hdh mRNA levels. These data provide evidence for genetic modifiers of both intergenerational HD CAG repeat instability and striatal-specific phenotypes. Different relative contributions of C57BL/6 and 129Sv genetic backgrounds to the onset of nuclear mutant huntingtin and somatic HD CAG repeat expansion predict that the initiation of each of these two phenotypes is modified by different genes. Our findings set the stage for defining disease-related genetic pathways that will ultimately provide insight into disease mechanism.

Glaucoma is a progressive blinding disease characterized by gradual loss of vision due to optic neuropathy and retinal ganglion cell death. Increased intraocular pressure is a common feature of glaucoma that is thought to arise from an increased resistance to outflow of aqueous humor through the trabecular meshwork. Mutations of the myocilin gene are one cause of autosomal dominant juvenile- and adult-onset primary open angle glaucoma, but the mechanism by which mutant myocilins cause disease is poorly understood. We have found that disease-causing myocilin mutants are misfolded, are highly aggregation-prone and accumulate in large aggregates in the endoplasmic reticulum (ER) of human embryonic kidney cells and differentiated primary human trabecular meshwork (HTM) cells. In HTM cells, Pro370Leu mutant myocilin is not secreted under normal culture conditions and prolonged expression results in abnormal cell morphology and cell killing. Culturing HTM cells at 30 degrees C, a condition known to facilitate protein folding, promotes secretion of mutant myocilin, normalizes cell morphology and reverses cell lethality. Our results indicate that myocilin-associated glaucoma is an ER storage disease and suggest a progression of events in which chronic expression of misfolded, non-secreted myocilin leads to HTM cell death, trabecular meshwork dysfunction and, ultimately, a dominant glaucoma phenotype. The beneficial effects of facilitating folding and secretion of mutant myocilin suggest a new type of treatment for this form of glaucoma.