Scientists have mapped out glycosylation patterns associated with the onset of Alzheimer's disease

Glycosylation of N-chain protein in the brain is an aspect that researchers have not fully studied in the process of glucose utilization

Recently, in a research report entitled "situ spatial glycomic imaging of mouse and human Alzheimer's disease brains" published in the international journal "Alzheimer's Disease and Dementia", scientists from the University of Kentucky and other institutions used a A new method to investigate the deaths of healthy people and people with Alzheimer's disease, and to map the changes in the sugar chains connected to brain proteins in their bodies

So far, researchers have not found an effective treatment for Alzheimer's disease.

In this article, researchers have developed a new imaging method that can identify the special patterns of sugar molecules attached to proteins inside tissues

The sugar molecule adsorption mode that the researchers studied is n-glycosylation, and they applied this to the analysis of the "sugar code" in the brains of two mice with Alzheimer's disease and humans who died of dementia

The mouse models studied by the researchers represent two different diseases common to patients with Alzheimer's

The level of glycosylation is elevated

Like mouse brains, in Alzheimer’s disease patients’ brains, glycosylation of the frontal cortex is present

These findings identified regional differences in the frontal cortex and hippocampus between human Alzheimer's disease patients and matched controls

The level of n-glycosylation in the cortex increases, and the level of n-glycosylation in the hippocampus decreases;

In addition, this study also emphasizes that there is a fundamental difference between the n-chain protein glycosylation pattern in the hippocampus of human patients and the mouse model of Alzheimer's disease

Image source: https://alz-journals.

Researcher Sun said that the research in this article may indicate future research directions for future treatment development and diagnosis of Alzheimer's disease, new treatment targets, and biomarker evaluation

Understanding the importance of n-glycosylation patterns and the regulation of biochemical processes in the brain is the subject of a review published by researchers in Endocrinology and Metabolic Trends

The biosynthesis of n-chain protein sugar chains is a paradox of sugar metabolism

Researcher Tara Hawkinson said that in the central nervous system, n-chain protein glycosylation is very important for neurons and glial cells
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This process controls key proteins involved in many aspects of neuronal activity
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Glycosylation can cause neuronal dysfunction and death
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Therefore, altered protein glycosylation may lead to overgrowth of a variety of nervous systems, from diseases related to neuron loss, such as Alzheimer’s disease and Parkinson’s disease, to diseases related to neuronal connection defects, such as mental illness.

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Schizophrenia and developmental neurological disorders
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The new method proposed in this paper can be used to evaluate the spatial distribution of sugar codes for n-glycosylation patterns in the brain
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This may lead researchers to ask many key questions, such as how these patterns are formed under pathological conditions
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And so on are changed
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Researcher Gentry said that with the advancement of these methods, we can begin to answer the following questions: How do brain cells coordinate glucose metabolism to balance the body's energy requirements and glycosylation requirements, and how changes in sugar codes promote neurological diseases
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Once it happens, researchers can begin to develop new methods to solve the above problems
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In summary, the results of this article indicate that the dysfunction of n-chain polysaccharides may be the key cause and basis for Alzheimer's disease
.