Source
Pasteur Institute, Cenci-Bolognetti Foundation, Department of Drug Chemistry and Technologies, University of Rome "La Sapienza", P. le A. Moro 5, 00185 Rome, Italy. antonello.mai@uniroma1.it
Abstract
Neurodegenerative disorders (NDs) such as Huntington's disease, Alzheimer's disease, Parkinson disease, amyotrophic lateral sclerosis, spinal muscular atrophy, Friedreich's ataxia, and others are multi-factorial illnesses, in which many pathways (still poorly understood) act serially and in parallel to give a determined pathologic phenotype. Thus, presently there are no effective cures for these diseases. Some phenotypic as well as mechanistic features, common to the most of NDs, can be linked to epigenetic defects, that can lead to alteration of acetylation homeostasis and impairment of the histone acetyltransferase (HAT): histone deacetylase (HDAC) balance. Here we survey most of the recent applications of HDAC inhibitors in the cited NDs, and we make the point of our (up to now) knowledge about the involvement of singular HDAC/SIRT isoform in NDs and other CNS pathologies.