Duke University Medical Center other research news

Researchers reported in Nature Medicine that in Huntington's disease, and four other adult-onset neurodegenerative brain disorders, the GAPDH enzyme (glyceraldehyde-3 phosphate dehydrogenase) bound better to an abnormally long glutamine string or chain of 60 repeats than to a short glutamine string of only 20 repeats.

The three nucleotide sequence CAG determines the amino acid glutamine. Patients with these diseases usually have more than 40 CAG repeats, while healthy individuals have fewer than 30 CAG repeats. In addition, the size of the inherited CAG repeat correlates with the severity and age of disease onset. ...