神经炎症与神经退行性疾病

 在脑损伤、感染等应激条件的诱导下,中枢神经系统中的小胶质细胞会迅速活化并促进神经炎症的发生。神经退行性疾病中同样存在广泛的慢性神经炎症,神经炎症还可能直接参与诱导了疾病的发生。对阿尔茨海默病等多种神经退行性疾病中炎症的活化机制,以及炎症如何诱导疾病发生和加重疾病进程的前沿研究进展进行了综述。提出找到那些靶向小胶质细胞活化关键位点,并具有良好血脑屏障通透性的药物是下一步的重点研究目标。     

朊蛋白感染与神经退行性疾病关系的研究

根据山东大学与美国肯塔基大学(University of Kentucky，Lexington)协议，笔者于2002年3月至2003年6月在美国肯塔基大学医学中心Sanders Brown老年病研究中心微生物学免疫学系进修学习，在Glenn Telling副教授的实验室从事朊蛋白(Prion)感染和神经退行性疾病(Neurodegenerative     

神经退行性致病蛋白分子的化学生物学

人类基因测序工程的完成,启动了对生命本质的认识,也标志着大规模研究蛋白质生物学时代的到来。人类基因组测序工程尚不能在蛋白分子水平解释和解决疾病的发病机制,因而无法通过灵活主动地发展和有效利用基因技术来治疗遗传性疾病和控制衰老等。最近在脑神经退行性疾病研究中提出的“蛋白质化学病变”之观点,将化学生物学方法与物理有机化学相结合,可能为人类基因组测序工程后的蛋白质组学研究和破译各种基因的功能提供有效的新手段,从而为揭示从基因、蛋白到生命和疾病的关系,提供新的研究思路和途径。     

丙二醛可用作神经退行性疾病进程的衡量指标

大量实证表明，自由基介导的氧化损伤与神经退行性疾病的发病机理相关。虽然丙二醛等不饱和醛酮作为氧化损伤指标的临床诊断价值不高，但实验证实它们在帕金森病、肌萎缩性侧索硬化病和阿尔茨采姆病等几种神经退行性疾病的机体组织中普遍增加。丙二醛测定方法简单、廉价、快速，利用测定丙二醛含量跟踪疾病的进程和检测不同治疗方法的功效有实用价值和重要意义。     

脱落酸ABA受体的功能以及翻译后修饰研究进展

脱落酸(Abscisic Acid, ABA)作为植物六大激素之一,在植物应对干旱、渗透等逆境胁迫条件下,维持植物体本身内环境的稳态中都起重要作用. ABA受体RCARs/PYR/PYLs结合ABA后抑制PP2C的活性来激活ABA信号转导途径. ABA受体作为ABA信号传递中的核心成员,其翻译后修饰对其功能有重要意义.本文主要总结了ABA受体的功能以及泛素化、硝基化和磷酸化修饰对其功能的精细调控的研究进展,并对该领域需解决的问题进行了展望.总结发现,ABA受体的不同修饰对其功能的影响不同,因此其翻译后修饰的研究可能对培育抗逆农作物品种具有理论指导意义.     

蛋白质翻译后修饰研究概述

在整个生物发展过程中,蛋白质翻译后修饰拥有非常特殊的功能及非常重要的意义,它使蛋白质的结构变得复杂,功能更加完善,调节更加精细,作用更加独特,因此,对蛋白质进行不同修饰类型的作用机制的研究,了解蛋白修饰的原理、种类和其功能对防患重大癌症有特殊功效。在生物体内,各种翻译后修饰过程不是孤立存在的,本文对蛋白质翻译后修饰的几种常见类型进行了概述,讨论了常见翻译后修饰类型、生物功能、检测技术。     

神经退行性疾病致病蛋白分子的化学生物学

人类基因测序工程的完成,启动了对生命本质的认识,也标志着大规模研究蛋白质生物学时代的到来.人类基因组测序工程尚不能在蛋白分子水平解释和解决疾病的发病机制,因而无法通过灵活主动地发展和有效利用基因技术来治疗遗传性疾病和控制衰老等.最近在脑神经退行性疾病研究中提出的"蛋白质化学病变”之观点,将化学生物学方法与物理有机化学相结合,可能为人类基因组测序工程后的蛋白质组学研究和破译各种基因的功能提供有效的新手段,从而为揭示从基因、蛋白到生命和疾病的关系,提供新的研究思路和途径.     

维生素D缺乏与神经退行性疾病相关性的研究进展

维生素D受体在成年人大脑皮质、海马、黑质、下丘脑等区域均有不同程度的表达,这些区域也是神经退行性疾病阿尔茨海默氏症、帕金森氏症、亨廷顿氏病的病原集中区域。越来越多的数据表明这几种神经退行性疾病患者的血清25(OH)D水平都呈现缺乏状态,维生素D缺乏提高了神经退行性疾病易感性,且1,25(OH)2D具有抗氧化应激和神经保护等作用。维生素D缺乏可能是引起神经退行性疾病发生和发展的病因之一。概述了近年来维生素D缺乏与神经退行性疾病的相关性及其机制的研究进展,可以为维生素D预防和治疗神经退行性疾病的应用提供理论参考。     

中链甘油三酯生酮饮食在神经退行性疾病治疗中的应用

生酮饮食(Ketogenic diet,KD)是一种高脂肪、低碳水化合物组成的配方饮食,临床上,最早用于治疗难治性癫痫.KD经过数十年的探索与改进,从经典的生酮饮食(Long chain ketogenic diet,LKD)衍生出中链甘油三酯型生酮饮食(Medium chain triglyceride ketogenic diet,MKD)、改良阿特金斯型饮食(Modified Atkins diet,MAD)和低血糖指数饮食(Low glycemic index treatmen diet,LGIT)等多种形式的饮食方案,尤其是MKD在神经退行性疾病如多发性硬化症(Multiple sclerosis,MS)、阿尔茨海默症(Alzheimers disease,AD)、帕金森(Parkinsons disease,PD)、亨廷顿病(Huntingtons disease,HD)等中起到明显治疗或是改善症状的作用.目前,MKD对神经保护的机制尚不完全明确,可能涉及的机制包括能量代谢、抗谷氨酸兴奋性毒性、抗氧化、抗凋亡、抗炎症等.本文就中链甘油三酯生酮饮食在神经退行性疾病的辅助治疗中的应用研究进展加以综述.     

英语矛盾修饰法之翻译探析

矛盾修饰是英语中一种特殊的修辞手法.从表面上看,矛盾修饰的语义搭配似乎自相矛盾且有悖于常理,但实际上却是以事物内部包含的两个对立因素相互衬托来表达事物的微妙内涵,体现了语义特征的矛盾与和谐的辩证统一.翻译英语矛盾修辞格时,应根据具体的语境, 准确把握矛盾修辞格中两个对立因素所反映事物的本质内涵,并按汉语的语言习惯表达出来.这样,译文才能收到良好的效果.     

The neurodegenerative disease protein aprataxin resolves abortive DNA ligation intermediates

Ataxia oculomotor apraxia-1 (AOA1) is a neurological disorder caused by mutations in the gene (APTX) encoding aprataxin. Aprataxin is a member of the histidine triad (HIT) family of nucleotide hydrolases and transferases, and inactivating mutations are largely confined to this HIT domain. Aprataxin associates with the DNA repair proteins XRCC1 and XRCC4, which are partners of DNA ligase III and ligase IV, respectively, suggestive of a role in DNA repair. Consistent with this, APTX-defective cell lines are sensitive to agents that cause single-strand breaks and exhibit an increased incidence of induced chromosomal aberrations. It is not, however, known whether aprataxin has a direct or indirect role in DNA repair, or what the physiological substrate of aprataxin might be. Here we show, using purified aprataxin protein and extracts derived from either APTX-defective chicken DT40 cells or Aptx-/- mouse primary neural cells, that aprataxin resolves abortive DNA ligation intermediates. Specifically, aprataxin catalyses the nucleophilic release of adenylate groups covalently linked to 5'-phosphate termini at single-strand nicks and gaps, resulting in the production of 5'-phosphate termini that can be efficiently rejoined. These data indicate that neurological disorders associated with APTX mutations may be caused by the gradual accumulation of unrepaired DNA strand breaks resulting from abortive DNA ligation events.     

Suppression of basal autophagy in neural cells causes neurodegenerative disease in mice

Autophagy is an intracellular bulk degradation process through which a portion of the cytoplasm is delivered to lysosomes to be degraded. Although the primary role of autophagy in many organisms is in adaptation to starvation, autophagy is also thought to be important for normal turnover of cytoplasmic contents, particularly in quiescent cells such as neurons. Autophagy may have a protective role against the development of a number of neurodegenerative diseases. Here we report that loss of autophagy causes neurodegeneration even in the absence of any disease-associated mutant proteins. Mice deficient for Atg5 (autophagy-related 5) specifically in neural cells develop progressive deficits in motor function that are accompanied by the accumulation of cytoplasmic inclusion bodies in neurons. In Atg5-/- cells, diffuse, abnormal intracellular proteins accumulate, and then form aggregates and inclusions. These results suggest that the continuous clearance of diffuse cytosolic proteins through basal autophagy is important for preventing the accumulation of abnormal proteins, which can disrupt neural function and ultimately lead to neurodegeneration.     

Post-translational disruption of dystroglycan-ligand interactions in congenital muscular dystrophies

Muscle eye brain disease (MEB) and Fukuyama congenital muscular dystrophy (FCMD) are congenital muscular dystrophies with associated, similar brain malformations. The FCMD gene, fukutin, shares some homology with fringe-like glycosyltransferases, and the MEB gene, POMGnT1, seems to be a new glycosyltransferase. Here we show, in both MEB and FCMD patients, that alpha-dystroglycan is expressed at the muscle membrane, but similar hypoglycosylation in the diseases directly abolishes binding activity of dystroglycan for the ligands laminin, neurexin and agrin. We show that this post-translational biochemical and functional disruption of alpha-dystroglycan is recapitulated in the muscle and central nervous system of mutant myodystrophy (myd) mice. We demonstrate that myd mice have abnormal neuronal migration in cerebral cortex, cerebellum and hippocampus, and show disruption of the basal lamina. In addition, myd mice reveal that dystroglycan targets proteins to functional sites in brain through its interactions with extracellular matrix proteins. These results suggest that at least three distinct mammalian genes function within a convergent post-translational processing pathway during the biosynthesis of dystroglycan, and that abnormal dystroglycan-ligand interactions underlie the pathogenic mechanism of muscular dystrophy with brain abnormalities.     

Abnormal protein aggregation and neurodegenerative diseases

Abnormal protein aggregation or amyloid is the major cause of many neurodegenerative disorders. The present review focuses on the correlation between sequence and structure features of proteins related to the diseases and abnormal protein aggregation. Recent progress has improved our knowledge on understanding the mechanism of amyloid formation. We suggest a nucleation model for ordered protein aggregation, which can also explain pathogenesis mechanisms of these neurodegenerative diseases in vivo.     

A network dysfunction perspective on neurodegenerative diseases

Patients with Alzheimer's disease or other neurodegenerative disorders show remarkable fluctuations in neurological functions, even during the same day. These fluctuations cannot be caused by sudden loss or gain of nerve cells. Instead, it is likely that they reflect variations in the activity of neural networks and, perhaps, chronic intoxication by abnormal proteins that the brain is temporarily able to overcome. These ideas have far-reaching therapeutic implications.     

The language of covalent histone modifications

Histone proteins and the nucleosomes they form with DNA are the fundamental building blocks of eukaryotic chromatin. A diverse array of post-translational modifications that often occur on tail domains of these proteins has been well documented. Although the function of these highly conserved modifications has remained elusive, converging biochemical and genetic evidence suggests functions in several chromatin-based processes. We propose that distinct histone modifications, on one or more tails, act sequentially or in combination to form a 'histone code' that is, read by other proteins to bring about distinct downstream events.     

Pivotal role of oligomerization in expanded polyglutamine neurodegenerative disorders

The expansion of a CAG repeat coding for polyglutamine in otherwise unrelated gene products is central to eight neurodegenerative disorders including Huntington's disease. It has been well documented that expanded polyglutamine fragments, cleaved from their respective full-length proteins, form microscopically visible aggregates in affected individuals and in transgenic mice. The contribution of polyglutamine oligomers to neurodegeneration, however, is controversial. The azo-dye Congo red binds preferentially to beta-sheets containing amyloid fibrils and can specifically inhibit oligomerization and disrupt preformed oligomers. Here we show that inhibition of polyglutamine oligomerization by Congo red prevents ATP depletion and caspase activation, preserves normal cellular protein synthesis and degradation functions, and promotes the clearance of expanded polyglutamine repeats in vivo and in vitro. Infusion of Congo red into a transgenic mouse model of Huntington's disease, well after the onset of symptoms, promotes the clearance of expanded repeats in vivo and exerts marked protective effects on survival, weight loss and motor function. We conclude that oligomerization is a crucial determinant in the biochemical properties of expanded polyglutamine that are central to their chronic cytotoxicity.     

Mitochondrial dysfunction and oxidative stress in neurodegenerative diseases

Many lines of evidence suggest that mitochondria have a central role in ageing-related neurodegenerative diseases. Mitochondria are critical regulators of cell death, a key feature of neurodegeneration. Mutations in mitochondrial DNA and oxidative stress both contribute to ageing, which is the greatest risk factor for neurodegenerative diseases. In all major examples of these diseases there is strong evidence that mitochondrial dysfunction occurs early and acts causally in disease pathogenesis. Moreover, an impressive number of disease-specific proteins interact with mitochondria. Thus, therapies targeting basic mitochondrial processes, such as energy metabolism or free-radical generation, or specific interactions of disease-related proteins with mitochondria, hold great promise.