Dysregulation of Mitochondrial Calcium Signaling and Superoxide Flashes Cause Mitochondrial Genomic DNA Damage in Huntington Disease

Huntington disease (HD) is an inherited, fatal neurodegenerative disorder characterized by the progressive loss of striatal medium spiny neurons. Indications of oxidative stress are apparent in brain tissues from both HD patients and HD mouse models; however, the origin of this oxidant stress remains a mystery. Here, we used a yeast artificial chromosome transgenic mouse model of HD (YAC128) to investigate the potential connections between dysregulation of cytosolic Ca2+ signaling and mitochondrial oxidative damage in HD cells. We found that YAC128 mouse embryonic fibroblasts exhibit a strikingly higher level of mitochondrial matrix Ca2+ loading and elevated superoxide generation compared with WT cells, indicating that both mitochondrial Ca2+ signaling and superoxide generation are dysregulated in HD cells. The excessive mitochondrial oxidant stress is critically dependent on mitochondrial Ca2+ loading in HD cells, because blocking mitochondrial Ca2+ uptake abolished elevated superoxide generation. Similar results were obtained using neurons from HD model mice and fibroblast cells from HD patients. More importantly, mitochondrial Ca2+ loading in HD cells caused a 2-fold higher level of mitochondrial genomic DNA (mtDNA) damage due to the excessive oxidant generation. This study provides strong evidence to support a new causal link between dysregulated mitochondrial Ca2+ signaling, elevated mitochondrial oxidant stress, and mtDNA damage in HD. Our results also indicate that reducing mitochondrial Ca2+ uptake could be a therapeutic strategy for HD.