Protective effect of sodium butyrate on the cell culture model of Huntington disease

This study aimed to develop a cell culture model of Huntington disease and observe the effect of sodium butyrate on this cell culture model. Exon 1 of both a wild type and a mutant IT15 gene from the genomic DNA of a healthy adult and a patient with Huntington disease was amplified and cloned into the eukaryotic expression vector pEGFP-C1. Human neuroblastoma SH-SY5Y cells were transiently transfected with these recombinant plasmids in the absence and presence of sodium butyrate (0.1, 0.2, 0.5, 1.0 mmol/L). The MTT assay was used to measure cell viability. The results indicated that the N-terminal fragment of mutant huntingtin formed perinuclear and intranuclear aggregates and caused a decrease of SH-SY5Y cell viability. Sodium butyrate inhibited the decrease of SH-SY5Y cell viability caused by the N-terminal fragment of mutant huntingtin. This suggests that sodium butyrate has a protective effect on this cell culture model of Huntington disease.