This is the most direct and clear evidence yet that neurons are metabolizing glucose through glycolysis and that they need this fuel to maintain normal energy levels. (Credits: Reuters)
Many of the foods we eat are broken down into glucose, which is stored in the liver and muscles, flowed throughout the body, and metabolized by cells to power the chemical reactions that keep us alive.
Researchers have shed light on how neurons, or nerve cells, consume and metabolize glucose, as well as how these cells adapt to glucose deprivation. Researchers from the Gladstone Institutes and UC San Francisco (UCSF), US, said the new findings could lead to new therapeutic approaches for those diseases and contribute to a better understanding of how to keep the brain healthy as we age. Are.
“We already knew that the brain needed a lot of glucose, but it was not clear how many neurons rely on glucose and what methods they use to break down the sugar,” said Gladstone’s associate investigator. says Ken Nakamura, senior author of AND. The study published in the journal Cell Reports.
Many of the foods we eat are broken down into glucose, which is stored in the liver and muscles, flowed throughout the body, and metabolized by cells to power the chemical reactions that keep us alive.
The scientists proposed that glial cells, or cells found in the tissue of the central nervous system, consume most of the glucose and then indirectly fuel neurons by passing a metabolic product of glucose called lactate to them. However, there was little evidence to support this theory. Nakamura’s group provided further evidence in this regard by using induced pluripotent stem cells (iPS cells) to generate pure human neurons. Until now, it has been difficult for scientists to generate cultures of neurons in the laboratory that also do not contain glial cells.
Then, the researchers injected the neurons with a labeled form of glucose that they could track, even as it was broken down. This experiment proved the ability of neurons to take up glucose themselves and process it into smaller metabolites.
Using CRISPR gene editing, the researchers extracted two key proteins from neurons to examine how they were using metabolized glucose products. While one of them enabled neurons to import glucose, the other was required for glycolysis, the main pathway by which cells normally metabolize glucose. They found that removing any of these proteins stopped the breakdown of glucose in isolated human neurons.
“This is the most direct and clear evidence yet that neurons are metabolizing glucose through glycolysis and that they need this fuel to maintain normal energy levels,” Nakamura said.
The team next engineered the neurons of the mice, but not other brain cell types, to lack the proteins needed for glucose import and glycolysis. Nakamura points out that the mice were found to develop severe learning and memory problems, suggesting that neurons rely on glycolysis for normal functioning.
“Interestingly, some of the deficits seen in mice with impaired glycolysis differed between males and females,” he said.
The team also studied how neurons adapted themselves in the absence of energy obtained through glycolysis – as can occur in some brain diseases. They found that neurons use other energy sources, such as the related sugar molecule galactose. However, the researchers found that galactose was not an efficient source of energy like glucose and could not fully compensate for the disadvantages of glucose metabolism.
read all Latest Lifestyle News Here
(This story has not been edited by News18 staff and is published from a syndicated news agency feed)
