Getting off tract: Polyglutamine disease involves other regions of protein

Many genes code for proteins that have a "polyglutamine tract," several glutamine amino acid residues in a row. Nine inherited neurodegenerative diseases, including Huntington's disease and spinocerebellar ataxia type 1 (SCA1), are associated with mutations that cause abnormally long polyglutamine tracts. One theory suggests that accumulation of proteins with extra glutamines damages and kills neurons. However, there is evidence that glutamine tract expansion alone is not sufficient to cause disease.

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