Oxidative damage to the promoter region of SQSTM1/p62 is common to neurodegenerative disease.

Recently we reported that declined SQSTM1/p62 expression in Alzheimer disease brain was age-correlated with oxidative damage to the p62 promoter. The objective of this study was to examine whether oxidative damage to the p62 promoter is common to DNA recovered from brain of individuals with neurodegenerative disease. Increased 8-OHdG staining was observed in brain sections from Alzheimer's disease (AD), Parkinson disease (PD), Huntington disease (HD), Frontotemporal dementia (FTD), and Pick's disease compared to control subjects. In parallel, the p62 promoter exhibited elevated oxidative damage in samples from various diseases compared to normal brain, and damage was negatively correlated with p62 expression in FTD samples. Oxidative damage to the p62 promoter induced by H2O2 treatment decreased its transcriptional activity. In keeping with this observation, the transcriptional activity of a Sp-1 element deletion mutant displayed reduced stimulus-induced activity. These findings reveal that oxidative damage to the p62 promoter decreased its transcriptional activity and might therefore account for decreased expression of p62. Altogether these results suggest that pharmacological means to increase p62 expression may be beneficial in delaying the onset of neurodegeneration.