What is it about?
Cholesterol is made outside the nerve (in cells called astrocytes) and shipped to nerves to control the state and function of the nerve. Specifically, the authors show cholesterol is a signaling lipid that control beta amyloid formation.
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Why is it important?
Cholesterol is high in Alzheimer's disease and a cholesterol transport protein apolipoprotein E4 is the most frequent genetic risk factor for Alzheimer's. This article explains why... cholesterol is a signaling lipid that controls amyloid plaque formation.
Perspectives
This paper reveals an entirely new regulatory mechanism in the brain. Cholesterol is a signaling lipid in the brain and astrocytes are controlling the neurons through the lipid signal. Many ion channels and transporters and almost all palmitoylated proteins are clustered by cholesterol. The mechanism presented here will be important for many different fields of study.
Scott Hansen
Scripps Research Institute
Read the Original
This page is a summary of: Regulation of beta-amyloid production in neurons by astrocyte-derived cholesterol, Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, August 2021, Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences,
DOI: 10.1073/pnas.2102191118.
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