Nrf2 Pathway in Huntington's Disease (HD): What Is Its Role?

Int J Mol Sci. 2022 Dec 3;23(23):15272. doi: 10.3390/ijms232315272.

Abstract

Huntington's disease (HD) is an autosomal dominant neurodegenerative disease that occurs worldwide. Despite some progress in understanding the onset of HD, drugs that block or delay symptoms are still not available. In recent years, many treatments have been proposed; among them, nuclear transcriptional factor-2 (Nrf2) enhancer compounds have been proposed as potential therapeutic agents to treat HD. Nrf2 triggers an endogenous antioxidant pathway activated in different neurodegenerative disorders. Probably, the stimulation of Nrf2 during either the early phase or before HD symptoms' onset, could slow or prevent striatum degeneration. In this review, we present the scientific literature supporting the role of Nrf2 in HD and the potential prophylactic and therapeutic role of this compound.

Keywords: Huntington’s disease; Nrf2; antioxidant; neurodegenerative disease; oxidative stress.

Publication types

  • Review

MeSH terms

  • Corpus Striatum / metabolism
  • Humans
  • Huntington Disease* / drug therapy
  • Huntington Disease* / genetics
  • Huntington Disease* / metabolism
  • NF-E2-Related Factor 2*
  • Neurodegenerative Diseases* / metabolism
  • Oxidative Stress

Substances

  • NF-E2-Related Factor 2

Grants and funding

This research received no external funding.