Fig. 1

A summary of key common pathological features in skeletal muscle wasting syndrome comparing cancer cachexia and Huntington’s disease (HD), based on the published literature [11–13, 15–17, 25, 28]. The left portion presents specific molecules and pathways that have been identified only in cancer cachexia models, but not explored in HD, while the right portion presents unique pathological features of HD-related skeletal muscle pathology. The intersection summarizes shared features of muscle pathology in HD and cancer cachexia. The box (bottom right) summarizes effective therapeutic approaches to prevent muscle wasting, in pre-clinical settings of cancer cachexia [30, 31, 33], that could be beneficial in HD