The power of the dark side: Huntington's disease protein and p53 form a deadly alliance

A role for apoptotic mediators in neurodegenerative disease has long been considered, but the identity of the putative effectors and the basis of their actions in neurodegeneration remain ill-defined. Huntington's disease (HD) is a polyglutamine disorder whose pathogenesis likely involves mitochondrial dysfunction. In this issue of Neuron, Bae et al. present data implicating p53 in HD pathogenesis. This intriguing study may thus provide a link between nuclear transcription dysregulation and mitochondrial abnormalities in HD.