New insight into protein glycosylation in the development of Alzheimer’s disease

Alzheimer’s disease (AD) is a chronic neurodegenerative disease that seriously endangers the physical and mental health of patients, however, there are still no effective drugs or methods to cure this disease up to now. Protein glycosylation is the most common modifications of the translated proteins in eukaryotic cells. Recently many researches disclosed that aberrant glycosylation happens in some important AD-related proteins, such as APP, Tau, Reelin and CRMP-2, etc, suggesting a close link between abnormal protein glycosylation and AD. Because of its complexity and diversity, glycosylation is thus considered a completely new entry point for understanding the precise cause of AD. This review comprehensively summarized the currently discovered changes in protein glycosylation patterns in AD, and especially introduced the latest progress on the mechanism of protein glycosylation affecting the progression of AD and the potential application of protein glycosylation in AD detection and treatment, thereby providing a wide range of opportunities for uncovering the pathogenesis of AD and promoting the translation of glycosylation research into future clinical applications.