Nuclear Buildup May Explain Brain Diseases

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Almost 20 years ago, a team of scientists removed brain cells from people with the neurodegenerative disorder Huntington's disease and scrutinized them under a powerful electron microscope. Deep inside the cells, in the DNA-carrying sac called the nucleus, the investigators found mysterious clumps.

The report was "buried in the literature. Nobody paid any attention to it at all," says Gillian P. Bates of Guy's Hospital in London.

Somebody should have. Resurrecting that long-forgotten observation, Bates and her colleagues have studied mice genetically engineered to develop Huntington's disease and now report that the mutant proteins they produce aggregate in the nuclei of some brain cells. These protein clumps may harm the nucleus …