Article Category: Review
Published Online: Jul 09, 2016
Page range: 5 - 14
DOI: https://doi.org/10.1515/bjmg-2015-0080
Keywords
© 2016 Walter de Gruyter GmbH, Berlin/Boston
This article is distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution Non-Commercial License, which permits unrestricted non-commercial use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original work is properly cited.
Neurodegenerative disorders are commonly encountered in medical practices. Such diseases can lead to major morbidity and mortality among the affected individuals. The molecular pathogenesis of these disorders is not yet clear. Recent literature has revealed that mutations in RNA-binding proteins are a key cause of several human neuronal-based diseases. This review discusses the role of RNA metabolism in neurological diseases with specific emphasis on roles of RNA translation and microRNAs in neurodegeneration, RNA-mediated toxicity, repeat expansion diseases and RNA metabolism, molecular pathogenesis of amyotrophic lateral sclerosis and frontotemporal dementia, and neurobiology of survival motor neuron (SMN) and spinal muscular atrophy.