Abstract Noncoding repeat expansions are a well-known cause of genetic disorders mainly affecting the central nervous system. Missed by most standard technologies used in routine diagnosis, pathogenic noncoding have to be searched for using specific techniques such as repeat-primed PCR or bioinformatics tools applied genome data, ExpansionHunter. In this review, we focus on GC-rich expansions, ...

BACKGROUND Friedreich ataxia is caused by an expanded GAA triplet-repeat sequence in intron 1 of the FXN gene that results in epigenetic silencing of the FXN promoter. This silencing mechanism is seen in patient-derived lymphoblastoid cells but it remains unknown if it is a widespread phenomenon affecting multiple cell types and tissues. METHODOLOGY / PRINCIPAL FINDINGS The humanized mouse mo...

Friedreich ataxia, the most prevalent inherited ataxia, is caused by an expanded GAA triplet-repeat sequence in intron 1 of the FXN gene. Repressive chromatin spreads from the expanded GAA triplet-repeat sequence to cause epigenetic silencing of the FXN promoter via altered nucleosomal positioning and reduced chromatin accessibility. Indeed, deficient transcriptional initiation is the predomina...

More than 20 human neurological and neurodegenerative diseases are caused by simple DNA repeat expansions; among these, non-coding CTG repeat expansions are the basis of myotonic dystrophy (DM1). Recent work, however, has also revealed that many human genes have anti-sense transcripts, raising the possibility that human trinucleotide expansion diseases may be comprised of pathogenic activities ...

Induction of transcription into long CTG.CAG repeats contained on plasmids in Escherichia coli is shown to increase the frequency of deletions within the repeat sequences. This elevated genetic instability was detected because active transcription into the triplet repeat influenced the growth transitions of the host cell, allowing advantageous growth for cells harboring plasmids with deleted re...

Expansion of (AGC)n repeats has been associated with genetic disorders called triplet-repeat diseases such as Huntington's disease (HD), myotonic muscular dystrophy (DM) and Kennedy's disease. To gain insight into the abnormal behavior of these repeats, we studied their structural properties in supercoiled DNA. Chemical probing revealed that, under physiological salt and pH conditions, Zn2+ or ...

We have embedded the hexameric triplet repeats (CAG)(6) and (CTG)(6) between two (GC)(3) domains to produce two 30-mer hairpins with the sequences d[(GC)(3)(CAG)(6)(GC)(3)] and d[(GC)(3)(CTG)(6)(GC)(3)]. This construct reduces the conformational space available to these repetitive DNA sequences. We find that the (CAG)(6) and (CTG)(6) repeats form stable, ordered, single-stranded structures. The...

Spinocerebellar degeneration (SCD) is a group of disorders characterized by progressive ataxia caused by dysfunction and atrophy of the cerebellum or its projections. Approximately one-third of SCD cases are familial SCD, the majority of which are attributed to CAG triplet repeat expansions including spinocerebellar ataxia (SCA)1, SCA2, Machado-Joseph disease (MJD)/SCA3, SCA6, SCA8, SCA12, SCA1...

Nucleotide variations, including SNPs, in the coding regions of disease genes are important targets for RNAi treatment, which is a promising medical treatment for intractable diseases such as triplet repeat diseases. However, the identification of such nucleotide variations and the design of siRNAs conferring disease allele-specific RNAi are quite difficult. In this study we developed a pull-do...

At least 25 inherited disorders in humans result from microsatellite repeat expansion. Dramatic variation in repeat instability occurs at different disease loci and between different tissues; however, cis-elements and trans-factors regulating the instability process remain undefined. Genomic fragments from the human spinocerebellar ataxia type 7 (SCA7) locus, containing a highly unstable CAG tr...