Micro RNA-214 contributes to proteasome independent downregulation of beta catenin in Huntington's disease knock-in striatal cell model STHdhQ111/Q111

Role of beta catenin in Huntington's disease (HD) is not clear. Previous studies on HD reported varied levels of beta catenin. In the present study we showed that beta catenin is post transcriptionally down-regulated in mutant huntingtin knock-in cell model STHdhQ111/Q111. This in turn leads to decreased level of wnt/beta catenin responsive genes. We observed that Gsk3beta or Gsk3beta (phospho Ser 9) is unaltered in HD and this down-regulation of beta catenin is independent of proteasomal degradation. Finally, we showed that the overexpression of miR-214 leads to the down-regulation of beta catenin at protein level only and reduces its transcriptional activity. We concluded that, miR-214 contributes to the processes that result in proteasome independent post transcriptional down-regulation of beta catenin in STHdhQ111/Q111, probably through inhibition of protein synthesis from beta catenin mRNA.