Protein oxidation in Huntington disease affects energy production and vitamin B6 metabolism.

Huntington disease (HD) is an inherited neurodegenerative disorder that initially affects the striatum and progressively the cortex. Oxidative stress in HD has been described as important to disease progression. In this study, protein carbonylation, used as a marker of protein oxidation, was analyzed in human brain striatum. A comparison of HD samples to matched controls identified 13 carbonylated proteins, including enzymes involved in the glycolytic pathway and mitochondrial proteins related to ATP production. Oxidation of the mitochondrial enzymes resulted in decreased catalytic activity, in good agreement with the energy deficiency observed in HD. We also found carbonylation of pyridoxal kinase and antiquitin 1, both involved in the metabolism of pyridoxal 5-phosphate, the active form of vitamin B6. The Tet/HD94 conditional mouse model allowed us to demonstrate that increased carbonylation in striatum is dependent on mutant huntingtin expression. As in humans, pyridoxal kinase showed decreased levels and was highly carbonylated in the gene-on mice; these modifications were reverted in the gene-off mice. We hypothesize that both pyridoxal kinase and antiquitin 1 oxidation could result in decreased pyridoxal 5-phosphate availability necessary as a cofactor in transaminations, synthesis of glutathione, and synthesis of GABA and dopamine, two neurotransmitters that play a key role in HD pathology.

Proteomic and oxidative stress analysis in human brain samples of Huntington disease.

Huntington disease (HD) is a neurodegenerative disorder caused by expansion of CAG repeats in exon 1 of the huntingtin gene, affecting initially the striatum and progressively the cortex. This work reports a proteomic analysis of human brain postmortem samples obtained from striatum and cortex of patients with HD compared to samples of age- and sex-matched controls. Antioxidant defense proteins that were strongly induced in striatum, but also detectable in cortex, were identified as peroxiredoxins 1, 2, and 6, as well as glutathione peroxidases 1 and 6. The activities of other antioxidant enzymes such as mitochondrial superoxide dismutase and catalase were also increased in HD. Aconitase, a protein involved in energy metabolism, showed decreased activities in striatum of HD patients. Protein carbonyls, used as markers of oxidative stress, were increased in HD, and glial fibrillary acidic protein, aconitase, gamma-enolase, and creatine kinase B were identified as the main targets. Taken together, these results indicate that oxidative stress and damage to specific macromolecules would participate in the disease progression. Also, these data support the rationale for therapeutic strategies that either potentiate antioxidant defenses or avoid oxidative stress generation to delay disease progression.