Lipid rafts participate in the renewal of brain neurons in Alzheimer's disease

Research over decades has implicated aberrant autophagy and lysosomal function as reliable markers and therapeutic targets for neurodegenerative diseases. Lipid rafts are shown to participate in lysosomal reproduction, and some lysosomal storage diseases are proposed to result from the accumulation of lipids in late endosomal/lysosomal compartments.

Prof. Lin Yuan and team from Southern Medical University in China review the influence of lipid rafts on the progression of Alzheimer's disease through the modulation of aberrant autophagic-lysosomal pathway of amyloid-ß peptide, and bring forward a possible mechanism underlying the clearance of Alzheimer's disease products, implicating the autophagic-lysosomal pathway from the perspective of "clearance" and "turnover" of cells.

The relevant findings have been published in the Neural Regeneration Research (Vol. 9, No. 1, 2014).

More information:
Zhou X, Yang C, Liu YF, Li P, Yang HY, Dai JX, Qu RM, Yuan L. Lipid rafts participate in aberrant degradative autophagic-lysosomal pathway of amyloid-beta peptide in Alzheimer's disease. Neural Regen Res. 2014;9(1):92-100.

Provided by Neural Regeneration Research