Could Huntington’s disease act as an anti-cancer tool?

Written by Roisin Conneely

Researchers from Northwestern University (IL, USA) have uncovered the anti-cancer properties of huntingtin, the gene that becomes mutated in Huntington’s disease (HD). The findings were recently published in EMBO Press. Characteristically, patients with HD are known to have reduced cancer susceptibility. The overabundance of C and G repeat sequences in the huntingtin gene are what contribute to the death of neurons in the brain, by attacking genes in the cell crucial to survival, in the form of small interfering RNAs. It is this characteristic that also makes HD toxic to cancer cells, with tumor cells demonstrating even higher susceptibility to...

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