Objective Huntington's disease (HD) is a rare neurodegenerative autosomic dominant disorder that causes severe motor dysfunction and cognitive deficits. Although HD main symptoms are manifested at mid-life, increasing evidence suggest that early neurodevelopmental defects may contribute to the late pathology. HD is a monogenetic disorder caused by a CAG repeat expansion inside the huntingtin gene (Htt). The functional role of Htt has been widely studied as a pro-survival anti-apoptotic factor, a regulator of vesicular trafficking along microtubules, a transporter of proteins between nucleus and cytoplasm, and a transcriptional role, however it’s main role in the brain during development and later adulthood is still poorly understood.Recently, genetic mouse models have shown that the loss of huntingtin from the brain at an early stage of development results in mitotic neural progenitor defects that disrupt cell fate in the cortex. In addition, the same study showed that loss-of-function of huntingtin specifically in early born neurons showed neuronal migration and neuronal dendritic arborization defects. However, to date, no studies have addressed and dissected the different roles of the human huntingtin protein in human cortical and striatal development specifically in different cell populations, or the effects of early phenotypes caused by loss-of-function of huntingtin in the late neuronal function. Here, I will study and dissect the function of human huntingtin during human development using human pluripotent stem cells (PSC) differentiated towards cortical and striatal neurons. Through this project I will generate several conditional knock out and full knock out human PSC lines to remove Htt expression specifically from different neuronal cell populations. Overall, all these analyses will give an overview of the developmental changes occurring in the absence of Htt function during cortical and striatal differentiation and neuronal maturation. Fields of science medical and health sciencesmedical biotechnologygenetic engineeringgene therapynatural sciencesbiological sciencesbiochemistrybiomoleculesproteinsmedical and health sciencesmedical biotechnologycells technologiesstem cellsmedical and health sciencesbasic medicinepathologymedical and health sciencesclinical medicineembryology Keywords Human pluripotent stem cells 3D neuronal differentiation from hPSC huntingtin function CRISPR CAS9-mediated Htt conditional ko generation Huntington's disease Programme(s) H2020-EU.1.3. - EXCELLENT SCIENCE - Marie Skłodowska-Curie Actions Main Programme H2020-EU.1.3.2. - Nurturing excellence by means of cross-border and cross-sector mobility Topic(s) MSCA-IF-2017 - Individual Fellowships Call for proposal H2020-MSCA-IF-2017 See other projects for this call Funding Scheme MSCA-IF - Marie Skłodowska-Curie Individual Fellowships (IF) Coordinator UNIVERSITA DEGLI STUDI DI MILANO Net EU contribution € 180 277,20 Address Via Festa Del Perdono 7 20122 Milano Italy See on map Region Nord-Ovest Lombardia Milano Activity type Higher or Secondary Education Establishments Links Contact the organisation Opens in new window Website Opens in new window Participation in EU R&I programmes Opens in new window HORIZON collaboration network Opens in new window Total cost € 180 277,20
