Alyson E. White

Alyson E. White

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Alyson E. White

Department of Medical Diagnostic and Translational Sciences, Old Dominion University, Norfolk, VA 23529, USA

Research Focus & Metrics

Academic Career Length

9Years (2018-Present)

(Calculated once Scilit publication data is synced: current year − year of first publication + 1)

Representative Publications

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1 July 2018 in Journal of Cell Science
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Journal Article
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PMPeter Mollica
Peter Mollica
MZMartina Zamponi
Martina Zamponi
JRJohn A. Reid
John A. Reid
DSDeepak K. Sharma
Deepak K. Sharma
AWAlyson E. White
Alyson E. White
PSPatrick Sachs
Patrick Sachs
Huntington9s disease (HD) is a rare autosomal dominant neurodegenerative disorder caused by a cytosine-adenine-guanine (CAG) trinucleotide repeat (TNR) expansion within the HTT gene. The mechanisms underlying HD-associated cellular dysfunction during pluripotency and neurodevelopment, are poorly understood. Here we tested the hypothesis that hypomethylation during cellular reprogramming leads to up-regulation of DNA repair genes and stabilization of TNRs in HD cells. We sought to determine how the HD TNR region is affected by global epigenetic changes through cellular reprogramming and early neurodifferentiation. We find that early-stage HD-affected neural stem cells (NSCs) contain increased levels of global 5-hydroxymethylation (5-hmC) and normalized DNA repair gene expression. We confirm TNR stability is induced during pluripotency, and maintained in HD-NSCs. We also identify up-regulation of 5-hmC catalyzing ten-eleven translocation (TET1/2) proteins, and show their knockdown leads to a corresponding decrease in select DNA repair gene expression. We further confirm decreased expression of TET regulating miR-29 family members in HD-NSCs. Our findings demonstrate that mechanisms involved in pluripotency recover the selected DNA repair gene expression and stabilizes pathogenic TNRs in HD.