Huntington's Disease Research Today is a free monthly online journal that collates and summarizes the latest research about Huntington's Disease, including details on genetics, causes, symptoms, treatment.

Treatment of YAC128 mice and their wild-type littermates with cystamine does not lead to its accumulation in plasma or brain: implications for the treatment of Huntington disease.

Pinto JT, Van Raamsdonk JM, Leavitt BR, Hayden MR, Jeitner TM, Thaler HT, Krasnikov BF, Cooper AJ

Burke Medical Research Institute, White Plains, New York, New York 10605, USA.

Cystamine is beneficial to Huntington disease (HD) transgenic mice. To elucidate the mechanism, cystamine metabolites were determined in brain and plasma of cystamine-treated mice. A major route for cystamine metabolism is thought to be: cystamine --> cysteamine --> hypotaurine --> taurine. Here we describe an HPLC system with coulometric detection that can rapidly measure underivatized cystamine, cysteamine and hypotaurine, as well as cysteine and glutathione in the same deproteinized tissue sample. A method is also described for the coulometric estimation of taurine as its isoindole-sulfonate derivative. Using this new methodology we showed that cystamine and cysteamine are undetectable (< or = 0.2 nmol/100 mg protein) in the brains of 3-month-old HD transgenic (YAC128) mice (or their wild-type littermates) treated daily for 2 weeks with cystamine (225 mg/kg) in their drinking water. No significant changes were observed in brain glutathione and taurine but significant increases were observed in brain cysteine. Cystamine and cysteamine were not detected in the plasma of YAC128 mice treated daily with cystamine between the ages of 4 and 12 or 7 and 12 months. These findings suggest that cystamine is not directly involved in mitigating HD but that increased brain cysteine or uncharacterized sulfur metabolites may be responsible.

Published 11 August 2005 in J Neurochem, 94(4): 1087-101.
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