Caspase 3-cleaved N-terminal fragments of wild-type and mutant huntingtin are present in normal and Huntington's disease brains, associate with membranes, and undergo calpain-dependent proteolysis.

The Huntington's disease (HD) mutation is a polyglutamine expansion in the N-terminal region of huntingtin (N-htt). How neurons die in HD is unclear. Mutant N-htt aggregates in neurons in the HD brain; expression of mutant N-htt in vitro causes cell death. Other in vitro studies show that proteolysis by caspase 3 could be important in regulating mutant N-htt function, but there has been no direct evidence for caspase 3-cleaved N-htt fragments in brain. Here, we show that N-htt fragments consistent with the size produced by caspase 3 cleavage in vitro are resident in the cortex, striatum, and cerebellum of normal and adult onset HD brain and are similar in size to the fragments seen after exogenous expression of human huntingtin in mouse clonal striatal neurons. HD brain extracts treated with active caspase 3 had increased levels of N-htt fragments. Compared with the full-length huntingtin, the caspase 3-cleaved N-htt fragments, especially the mutant fragment, preferentially segregated with the membrane fraction. Partial proteolysis of the human caspase 3-cleaved N-htt fragment by calpain occurred in vitro and resulted in smaller N-terminal products; products of similar size appeared when mouse brain protein extracts were treated with calpain. Results support the idea that sequential proteolysis by caspase 3 and calpain may regulate huntingtin function at membranes and produce N-terminal mutant fragments that aggregate and cause cellular dysfunction in HD.

Early and progressive accumulation of reactive microglia in the Huntington disease brain.

Microglia may contribute to cell death in neurodegenerative diseases. We studied the activation of microglia in affected regions of Huntington disease (HD) brain by localizing thymosin beta-4 (Tbeta4), which is increased in reactive microglia. Activated microglia appeared in the neostriatum, cortex, and globus pallidus and the adjoining white matter of the HD brain, but not in control brain. In the striatum and cortex, reactive microglia occurred in all grades of pathology, accumulated with increasing grade, and grew in density in relation to degree of neuronal loss. The predominant morphology of activated microglia differed in the striatum and cortex. Processes of reactive microglia were conspicuous in low-grade HD, suggesting an early microglia response to changes in neuropil and axons and in the grade 2 and grade 3 cortex, were aligned with the apical dendrites of pyramidal neurons. Some reactive microglia contacted pyramidal neurons with huntingtin-positive nuclear inclusions. The early and proximate association of activated microglia with degenerating neurons in the HD brain implicates a role for activated microglia in HD pathogenesis.

Pro-caspase-8 is predominantly localized in mitochondria and released into cytoplasm upon apoptotic stimulation.

The recruitment and cleavage of pro-caspase-8 to produce the active form of caspase-8 is a critical biochemical event in death receptor-mediated apoptosis. However, the source of pro-caspase-8 available for activation by apoptotic triggers is unknown. In human fibroblasts and mouse clonal striatal cells, confocal microscopy revealed that pro-caspase-8 immunofluorescence was colocalized with cytochrome c in mitochondria and was also distributed diffusely in some nuclei. Biochemical analysis of subcellular fractions indicated that pro-caspase-8 was enriched in mitochondria and in nuclei. Pro-caspase-8 was found in the intermembrane space, inner membrane, and matrix of mitochondria after limited digestion of mitochondrial fractions, and this distribution was confirmed by immunogold electron microscopy. Pro-caspase-8 and cytochrome c were released from isolated mitochondria that were treated with an inhibitor of the ADP/ATP carrier atractyloside, which opens the mitochondria permeability transition pore. Release was blocked by the mitochondria permeability transition pore inhibitor cyclosporin A (CsA). After clonal striatal cells were exposed for 6 h to an apoptotic inducer tumor necrosis factor-alpha (TNF-alpha), mitochondria immunoreactive for cytochrome c and pro-caspase-8 became clustered at perinuclear sites. Pro-caspase-8 and cytochrome c levels decreased in mitochondrial fractions and increased, along with pro-caspase-8 cleavage products, in the cytoplasm of the TNF-alpha-treated striatal cells. CsA blocked the TNF-alpha-induced release of pro-caspase 8 but not cytochrome c. Internucleosomal DNA fragmentation started at 6 h and peaked 12 h after TNF-alpha treatment. These results suggest that pro-caspase-8 is predominantly localized in mitochondria and is released upon apoptotic stimulation through a CsA-sensitive mechanism.

Huntingtin expression stimulates endosomal-lysosomal activity, endosome tubulation, and autophagy.

An expansion of polyglutamines in the N terminus of huntingtin causes Huntington's disease (HD) and results in the accrual of mutant protein in the nucleus and cytoplasm of affected neurons. How mutant huntingtin causes neurons to die is unclear, but some recent observations suggest that an autophagic process may occur. We showed previously that huntingtin markedly accumulates in endosomal-lysosomal organelles of affected HD neurons and, when exogenously expressed in clonal striatal neurons, huntingtin appears in cytoplasmic vacuoles causing cells to shrink. Here we show that the huntingtin-enriched cytoplasmic vacuoles formed in vitro internalized the lysosomal enzyme cathepsin D in proportion to the polyglutamine-length in huntingtin. Huntingtin-labeled vacuoles displayed the ultrastructural features of early and late autophagosomes (autolysosomes), had little or no overlap with ubiquitin, proteasome, and heat shock protein 70/heat shock cognate 70 immunoreactivities, and altered the arrangement of Golgi membranes, mitochondria, and nuclear membranes. Neurons with excess cytoplasmic huntingtin also exhibited increased tubulation of endosomal membranes. Exogenously expressed human full-length wild-type and mutant huntingtin codistributed with endogenous mouse huntingtin in soluble and membrane fractions, whereas human N-terminal huntingtin products were found only in membrane fractions that contained lysosomal organelles. We speculate that mutant huntingtin accumulation in HD activates the endosomal-lysosomal system, which contributes to huntingtin proteolysis and to an autophagic process of cell death.

AlphaB-crystallin regulates intermediate filament organization in situ.

AlphaB-crystallin is a small heat shock protein (hsp) and molecular chaperone that can interact with a wide spectrum of cellular components including intermediate filaments (IF). The significance of these interactions is not currently known. We have tested whether increased alphaB-crystallin expression effects changes in the IF systems in situ. Adenoviral-mediated gene transfer was used to overexpress alphaB-crystallin in primary astrocytes. A positive correlation was observed between overexpression of alphaB-crystallin and diffuse, filigree IF. AlphaB-crystallin did not appear to alter the polymerization state of IF proteins. These data show that an increase in alphaB-crystallin expression in the absence of stress can modify the organizational state of IF and that alphaB-crystallin can function as an IF debundling protein.

AlphaB-crystallin protects glial cells from hypertonic stress.

AlphaB-crystallin and the small stress protein, heat shock protein of 27 kDa (HSP27), share structural similarities and are coordinately induced by classical stress stimuli. We have recently observed that hypertonic stress produced by high NaCl concentrations selectively induces alphaB-crystallin in glial cells. To examine divergence of the functional properties of these two related proteins, we have constructed stable alphaB-crystallin-expressing glial cell lines from the U-251 MG glioma cells, which are normally deficient in alphaB-crystallin expression but constitutively express HSP27. These transfected cells lines are more resistant to acute hypertonic stress than the parental line from which they were derived. Moreover, the parental line acclimates to stepwise increases in hypertonicity and upregulates endogenous alphaB-crystallin in the process but not HSP27. The overexpression of HSP27 and alphaB-crystallin in NIH/3T3 fibroblasts, a cell line that normally expresses little alphaB-crystallin and no HSP27, does not result in increased survival. This suggests that alphaB-crystallin interacts with cell-type specific mechanisms to aid in protection from hypertonic stress.