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Recent Advances in the Pharmacology of Spinocerebellar Ataxia

A special issue of International Journal of Molecular Sciences (ISSN 1422-0067). This special issue belongs to the section "Molecular Pharmacology".

Deadline for manuscript submissions: closed (30 November 2023) | Viewed by 2153

Special Issue Editors


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Guest Editor
Departamento de Ciências Biomédicas e Medicina, Universidade do Algarve, Faro, Portugal
Interests: gene therapy; polyglutamine diseases; ataxin-2; ataxin-3; neurodegeneration; stress granules
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Guest Editor
Medical Genetics Service, Hospital de Clínicas de Porto Alegre, Rua Ramiro Barcelos, 2350, Porto Alegre 90.035-903, Brazil
Interests: huntington’s disease; spinocerebellar ataxia; cag repeat; genetic analysis; hereditary ataxias

Special Issue Information

Dear Colleagues,

Spinocerebellar ataxias (SCAs) comprise a group of neurodegenerative diseases, now including more than 40 different pathologies. While heterogeneous in terms of cause, disease characteristics, and even progression, they are all characterized by a main degeneration of the cerebellum, which is accompanied by degenerative alterations in other regions of the nervous system. This cerebellar degeneration translates into a loss of coordination, particularly gait, being this ataxia the most prominent symptom of SCA patients. While individually most of these diseases are rare, as a group they have an important dimension and are a current focus of research. Importantly, all the treatments available are symptomatic, as there is no disease modifying therapy that could stop or delay the disease progression. Therefore, there is an urgent need for new treatments for these incurable diseases.

In this line, this special issue aims to provide an updated view on the advances made in the development of drugs aiming to treat spinocerebellar ataxias, focusing both on new drugs being used in patients both in clinics and in clinical trials, but also providing an updated view on the promising drugs that are being studied in a preclinical setting.

Dr. Clévio Nóbrega
Prof. Dr. Laura Bannach Jardim
Guest Editors

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Keywords

  • spinocerebellar ataxias
  • ataxia
  • pharmacology
  • drugs
  • therapies
  • neurodegeneration

Published Papers (1 paper)

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Review

14 pages, 502 KiB  
Review
Autophagy in Spinocerebellar Ataxia Type 3: From Pathogenesis to Therapeutics
by Rodrigo Paulino and Clévio Nóbrega
Int. J. Mol. Sci. 2023, 24(8), 7405; https://doi.org/10.3390/ijms24087405 - 17 Apr 2023
Cited by 4 | Viewed by 1899
Abstract
Machado–Joseph disease (MJD) or spinocerebellar ataxia 3 (SCA3) is a rare, inherited, monogenic, neurodegenerative disease, and the most common SCA worldwide. MJD/SCA3 causative mutation is an abnormal expansion of the triplet CAG at exon 10 within the ATXN3 gene. The gene encodes for [...] Read more.
Machado–Joseph disease (MJD) or spinocerebellar ataxia 3 (SCA3) is a rare, inherited, monogenic, neurodegenerative disease, and the most common SCA worldwide. MJD/SCA3 causative mutation is an abnormal expansion of the triplet CAG at exon 10 within the ATXN3 gene. The gene encodes for ataxin-3, which is a deubiquitinating protein that is also involved in transcriptional regulation. In normal conditions, the ataxin-3 protein polyglutamine stretch has between 13 and 49 glutamines. However, in MJD/SCA3 patients, the size of the stretch increases from 55 to 87, contributing to abnormal protein conformation, insolubility, and aggregation. The formation of aggregates, which is a hallmark of MJD/SCA3, compromises different cell pathways, leading to an impairment of cell clearance mechanisms, such as autophagy. MJD/SCA3 patients display several signals and symptoms in which the most prominent is ataxia. Neuropathologically, the regions most affected are the cerebellum and the pons. Currently, there are no disease-modifying therapies, and patients rely only on supportive and symptomatic treatments. Due to these facts, there is a huge research effort to develop therapeutic strategies for this incurable disease. This review aims to bring together current state-of-the-art strategies regarding the autophagy pathway in MJD/SCA3, focusing on evidence for its impairment in the disease context and, importantly, its targeting for the development of pharmacological and gene-based therapies. Full article
(This article belongs to the Special Issue Recent Advances in the Pharmacology of Spinocerebellar Ataxia)
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