Communications Biology (Dec 2021)

Huntingtin structure is orchestrated by HAP40 and shows a polyglutamine expansion-specific interaction with exon 1

  • Rachel J. Harding,
  • Justin C. Deme,
  • Johannes F. Hevler,
  • Sem Tamara,
  • Alexander Lemak,
  • Jeffrey P. Cantle,
  • Magdalena M. Szewczyk,
  • Nola Begeja,
  • Siobhan Goss,
  • Xiaobing Zuo,
  • Peter Loppnau,
  • Alma Seitova,
  • Ashley Hutchinson,
  • Lixin Fan,
  • Ray Truant,
  • Matthieu Schapira,
  • Jeffrey B. Carroll,
  • Albert J. R. Heck,
  • Susan M. Lea,
  • Cheryl H. Arrowsmith

DOI
https://doi.org/10.1038/s42003-021-02895-4
Journal volume & issue
Vol. 4, no. 1
pp. 1 – 16

Abstract

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Harding et al. present a biophysical and structural characterization of the complex between huntingtin (HTT) and HAP40 proteins. They show that the abundance of HAP40 is coupled with that of HTT and that there is greater conformational variety in the exon 1 of the mutant HTT than WT, important for the future drug discovery studies targeting Huntington’s disease.