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Glycan Mimetics from Natural Products: New Therapeutic Opportunities for Neurodegenerative Disease

Neurodegenerative diseases (NDs) affect millions of people worldwide. Characterized by the functional loss and death of neurons, NDs lead to symptoms (dementia and seizures) that affect the daily lives of patients. In spite of extensive research into NDs, the number of approved drugs for their treat...

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Detalles Bibliográficos
Autores principales: Wang, Wenyue, Gopal, Sandeep, Pocock, Roger, Xiao, Zhicheng
Formato: Online Artículo Texto
Lenguaje:English
Publicado: MDPI 2019
Materias:
Acceso en línea:https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC6943557/
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/31888221
http://dx.doi.org/10.3390/molecules24244604
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author Wang, Wenyue
Gopal, Sandeep
Pocock, Roger
Xiao, Zhicheng
author_facet Wang, Wenyue
Gopal, Sandeep
Pocock, Roger
Xiao, Zhicheng
author_sort Wang, Wenyue
collection PubMed
description Neurodegenerative diseases (NDs) affect millions of people worldwide. Characterized by the functional loss and death of neurons, NDs lead to symptoms (dementia and seizures) that affect the daily lives of patients. In spite of extensive research into NDs, the number of approved drugs for their treatment remains limited. There is therefore an urgent need to develop new approaches for the prevention and treatment of NDs. Glycans (carbohydrate chains) are ubiquitous, abundant, and structural complex natural biopolymers. Glycans often covalently attach to proteins and lipids to regulate cellular recognition, adhesion, and signaling. The importance of glycans in both the developing and mature nervous system is well characterized. Moreover, glycan dysregulation has been observed in NDs such as Alzheimer’s disease (AD), Huntington’s disease (HD), Parkinson’s disease (PD), multiple sclerosis (MS), and amyotrophic lateral sclerosis (ALS). Therefore, glycans are promising but underexploited therapeutic targets. In this review, we summarize the current understanding of glycans in NDs. We also discuss a number of natural products that functionally mimic glycans to protect neurons, which therefore represent promising new therapeutic approaches for patients with NDs.
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spelling pubmed-69435572020-01-10 Glycan Mimetics from Natural Products: New Therapeutic Opportunities for Neurodegenerative Disease Wang, Wenyue Gopal, Sandeep Pocock, Roger Xiao, Zhicheng Molecules Review Neurodegenerative diseases (NDs) affect millions of people worldwide. Characterized by the functional loss and death of neurons, NDs lead to symptoms (dementia and seizures) that affect the daily lives of patients. In spite of extensive research into NDs, the number of approved drugs for their treatment remains limited. There is therefore an urgent need to develop new approaches for the prevention and treatment of NDs. Glycans (carbohydrate chains) are ubiquitous, abundant, and structural complex natural biopolymers. Glycans often covalently attach to proteins and lipids to regulate cellular recognition, adhesion, and signaling. The importance of glycans in both the developing and mature nervous system is well characterized. Moreover, glycan dysregulation has been observed in NDs such as Alzheimer’s disease (AD), Huntington’s disease (HD), Parkinson’s disease (PD), multiple sclerosis (MS), and amyotrophic lateral sclerosis (ALS). Therefore, glycans are promising but underexploited therapeutic targets. In this review, we summarize the current understanding of glycans in NDs. We also discuss a number of natural products that functionally mimic glycans to protect neurons, which therefore represent promising new therapeutic approaches for patients with NDs. MDPI 2019-12-16 /pmc/articles/PMC6943557/ /pubmed/31888221 http://dx.doi.org/10.3390/molecules24244604 Text en © 2019 by the authors. Licensee MDPI, Basel, Switzerland. This article is an open access article distributed under the terms and conditions of the Creative Commons Attribution (CC BY) license (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/).
spellingShingle Review
Wang, Wenyue
Gopal, Sandeep
Pocock, Roger
Xiao, Zhicheng
Glycan Mimetics from Natural Products: New Therapeutic Opportunities for Neurodegenerative Disease
title Glycan Mimetics from Natural Products: New Therapeutic Opportunities for Neurodegenerative Disease
title_full Glycan Mimetics from Natural Products: New Therapeutic Opportunities for Neurodegenerative Disease
title_fullStr Glycan Mimetics from Natural Products: New Therapeutic Opportunities for Neurodegenerative Disease
title_full_unstemmed Glycan Mimetics from Natural Products: New Therapeutic Opportunities for Neurodegenerative Disease
title_short Glycan Mimetics from Natural Products: New Therapeutic Opportunities for Neurodegenerative Disease
title_sort glycan mimetics from natural products: new therapeutic opportunities for neurodegenerative disease
topic Review
url https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC6943557/
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/31888221
http://dx.doi.org/10.3390/molecules24244604
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