The study found that the lipid solution of nerve cells promotes the degeneration of nerve cells.

Lipid droplets are cells with hydrophobic environments in the enumerated cells that provide the material and energy metabolic basis for cells by storing and releasing lipids.
changes in lipid droplets are associated with a variety of metabolic diseases, such as obesity, fatty liver disease, diabetes, etc.
some neurodegenerative diseases such as Parkinson's disease, Huntington's disease, hereditary spasm disease, etc. have been reported to be associated with abnormal dynamics of lipid droplets, however, the causal relationship between the abnormal dynamics of lipid droplets and neurological diseases is not clear.
most ucleocytes have fat droplets, but under normal conditions, there are fewer fat droplets in the body's nerve cells.
the dynamics of lipid droplets in somogenetic nerve cells and their relationship with neurological diseases is of great significance for revealing the mechanism of nerve lipid metabolism regulation and treating neuro-related diseases.
, a researcher at the Institute of Genetics and Developmental Biology of the Chinese Academy of Sciences, used different patterns of biology to analyze the dynamic changes of lipids in different tissues and organs of individual growth and aging (Bi et al.), Cell Metabolism 2014; Fan et al., PLoS Genetics 2017; Ding et al., EMBO J 2018; Yao et al., Cell Reports 2018; Yang et al., PLoS Genetics 2019).
To study the mechanism of nerve cell lipid metabolism regulation, the researchers established a specific lipid marker system for nerve cells, and through genetic screening, it was found that the mutation of the key genes in the lipid decomposition pathway, atgl-1 and lid-1 mutation, will cause more abnormal accumulation of lipid droplets in nematode nerve cells, and the lipid-decomposing nerve tissue independently regulates the lipid dynamics;
, the synthesis and decomposition of lipids in nerve cells jointly regulate the dynamics of lipid droplets in nerve cells and maintain low lipid levels.
After observing whether abnormal accumulation of lipid droplets in nerve cells affects the normal function of nerve cells and neurodegeneration, it was found that the accumulation of lipid droplets in nerve cells reduces the sensitivity of mechanically sensitive sensory neurons to external mechanical stimuli and inhibits neurocell degeneration caused by the overactivation of the ion channel protein MEC-4.
, polyunsaturated fatty acids were found to be involved in regulating the process through lipomic and genetic analysis, combined with existing literature reports.
mechanism, neurocell lipids provide polyunsaturated fatty acids, which participate in the formation of phospholipids and promote neurocellular degeneration.
The study found that regulating polyunsaturated fatty acid levels and their balance between triglycerides and phospholipids can affect neurocellular degeneration caused by overactivation of ion channel proteins, which is of guiding significance for the treatment of neurodegenerative diseases.
research was published online on EMBO Reports (DOI:10.15252/embr.202050214) under the title Neuroonal lipolysis in PUFA-mediated neural function and neurodegeneration.
Leilei, Ph.D. student of the Institute of Genetic Development, is the first author of the thesis, Huang Xun is the author of the paper, and Ding Mei, a researcher of the Institute of Genetic Development, is involved in the research work.
research has been funded by the National Natural Science Foundation of China and the Ministry of Science and Technology.
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