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The Unifying Hypothesis of Alzheimer’s Disease: Heparan Sulfate Proteoglycans/Glycosaminoglycans Are Key as First Hypothesized Over 30 Years Ago

The updated “Unifying Hypothesis of Alzheimer’s disease” (AD) is described that links all the observed neuropathology in AD brain (i.e., plaques, tangles, and cerebrovascular amyloid deposits), as well as inflammation, genetic factors (involving ApoE), “AD-in-a-Dish” studies, beta-amyloid protein (A...

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Autores principales: Snow, Alan David, Cummings, Joel A., Lake, Thomas
Formato: Online Artículo Texto
Lenguaje:English
Publicado: Frontiers Media S.A. 2021
Materias:
Acceso en línea:https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC8521200/
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/34671250
http://dx.doi.org/10.3389/fnagi.2021.710683
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author Snow, Alan David
Cummings, Joel A.
Lake, Thomas
author_facet Snow, Alan David
Cummings, Joel A.
Lake, Thomas
author_sort Snow, Alan David
collection PubMed
description The updated “Unifying Hypothesis of Alzheimer’s disease” (AD) is described that links all the observed neuropathology in AD brain (i.e., plaques, tangles, and cerebrovascular amyloid deposits), as well as inflammation, genetic factors (involving ApoE), “AD-in-a-Dish” studies, beta-amyloid protein (Aβ) as a microbial peptide; and theories that bacteria, gut microflora, gingivitis and viruses all play a role in the cause of AD. The common link is the early accumulation of heparan sulfate proteoglycans (HSPGs) and heparan sulfate glycosaminoglycans (GAGs). HS GAG accumulation and/or decreased HS GAG degradation is postulated to be the key initiating event. HS GAGs and highly sulfated macromolecules induce Aβ 1–40 (but not 1–42) to form spherical congophilic maltese-cross star-like amyloid core deposits identical to those in the AD brain. Heparin/HS also induces tau protein to form paired helical filaments (PHFs). Increased sulfation and/or decreased degradation of HSPGs and HS GAGs that occur due to brain aging leads to the formation of plaques and tangles in AD brain. Knockout of HS genes markedly reduce the accumulation of Aβ fibrils in the brain demonstrating that HS GAGs are key. Bacteria and viruses all use cell surface HS GAGs for entry into cells, including SARS-CoV-2. Bacteria and viruses cause HS GAGs to rapidly increase to cause near-immediate aggregation of Aβ fibrils. “AD-in-a-dish” studies use “Matrigel” as the underlying scaffold that spontaneously causes plaque, and then tangle formation in a dish. Matrigel mostly contains large amounts of perlecan, the same specific HSPG implicated in AD and amyloid disorders. Mucopolysaccharidoses caused by lack of specific HS GAG enzymes lead to massive accumulation of HS in lysosomal compartments in neurons and contribute to cognitive impairment in children. Neurons full of HS demonstrate marked accumulation and fibrillization of Aβ, tau, α-synuclein, and prion protein (PrP) in mucopolysaccharidosis animal models demonstrating that HS GAG accumulation is a precursor to Aβ accumulation in neurons. Brain aging leads to changes in HSPGs, including newly identified splice variants leading to increased HS GAG sulfation in the AD brain. All of these events lead to the new “Unifying Hypothesis of Alzheimer’s disease” that further implicates HSPGs /HS GAGs as key (as first hypothesized by Snow and Wight in 1989).
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spelling pubmed-85212002021-10-19 The Unifying Hypothesis of Alzheimer’s Disease: Heparan Sulfate Proteoglycans/Glycosaminoglycans Are Key as First Hypothesized Over 30 Years Ago Snow, Alan David Cummings, Joel A. Lake, Thomas Front Aging Neurosci Neuroscience The updated “Unifying Hypothesis of Alzheimer’s disease” (AD) is described that links all the observed neuropathology in AD brain (i.e., plaques, tangles, and cerebrovascular amyloid deposits), as well as inflammation, genetic factors (involving ApoE), “AD-in-a-Dish” studies, beta-amyloid protein (Aβ) as a microbial peptide; and theories that bacteria, gut microflora, gingivitis and viruses all play a role in the cause of AD. The common link is the early accumulation of heparan sulfate proteoglycans (HSPGs) and heparan sulfate glycosaminoglycans (GAGs). HS GAG accumulation and/or decreased HS GAG degradation is postulated to be the key initiating event. HS GAGs and highly sulfated macromolecules induce Aβ 1–40 (but not 1–42) to form spherical congophilic maltese-cross star-like amyloid core deposits identical to those in the AD brain. Heparin/HS also induces tau protein to form paired helical filaments (PHFs). Increased sulfation and/or decreased degradation of HSPGs and HS GAGs that occur due to brain aging leads to the formation of plaques and tangles in AD brain. Knockout of HS genes markedly reduce the accumulation of Aβ fibrils in the brain demonstrating that HS GAGs are key. Bacteria and viruses all use cell surface HS GAGs for entry into cells, including SARS-CoV-2. Bacteria and viruses cause HS GAGs to rapidly increase to cause near-immediate aggregation of Aβ fibrils. “AD-in-a-dish” studies use “Matrigel” as the underlying scaffold that spontaneously causes plaque, and then tangle formation in a dish. Matrigel mostly contains large amounts of perlecan, the same specific HSPG implicated in AD and amyloid disorders. Mucopolysaccharidoses caused by lack of specific HS GAG enzymes lead to massive accumulation of HS in lysosomal compartments in neurons and contribute to cognitive impairment in children. Neurons full of HS demonstrate marked accumulation and fibrillization of Aβ, tau, α-synuclein, and prion protein (PrP) in mucopolysaccharidosis animal models demonstrating that HS GAG accumulation is a precursor to Aβ accumulation in neurons. Brain aging leads to changes in HSPGs, including newly identified splice variants leading to increased HS GAG sulfation in the AD brain. All of these events lead to the new “Unifying Hypothesis of Alzheimer’s disease” that further implicates HSPGs /HS GAGs as key (as first hypothesized by Snow and Wight in 1989). Frontiers Media S.A. 2021-10-04 /pmc/articles/PMC8521200/ /pubmed/34671250 http://dx.doi.org/10.3389/fnagi.2021.710683 Text en Copyright © 2021 Snow, Cummings and Lake. https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/This is an open-access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License (CC BY). The use, distribution or reproduction in other forums is permitted, provided the original author(s) and the copyright owner(s) are credited and that the original publication in this journal is cited, in accordance with accepted academic practice. No use, distribution or reproduction is permitted which does not comply with these terms.
spellingShingle Neuroscience
Snow, Alan David
Cummings, Joel A.
Lake, Thomas
The Unifying Hypothesis of Alzheimer’s Disease: Heparan Sulfate Proteoglycans/Glycosaminoglycans Are Key as First Hypothesized Over 30 Years Ago
title The Unifying Hypothesis of Alzheimer’s Disease: Heparan Sulfate Proteoglycans/Glycosaminoglycans Are Key as First Hypothesized Over 30 Years Ago
title_full The Unifying Hypothesis of Alzheimer’s Disease: Heparan Sulfate Proteoglycans/Glycosaminoglycans Are Key as First Hypothesized Over 30 Years Ago
title_fullStr The Unifying Hypothesis of Alzheimer’s Disease: Heparan Sulfate Proteoglycans/Glycosaminoglycans Are Key as First Hypothesized Over 30 Years Ago
title_full_unstemmed The Unifying Hypothesis of Alzheimer’s Disease: Heparan Sulfate Proteoglycans/Glycosaminoglycans Are Key as First Hypothesized Over 30 Years Ago
title_short The Unifying Hypothesis of Alzheimer’s Disease: Heparan Sulfate Proteoglycans/Glycosaminoglycans Are Key as First Hypothesized Over 30 Years Ago
title_sort unifying hypothesis of alzheimer’s disease: heparan sulfate proteoglycans/glycosaminoglycans are key as first hypothesized over 30 years ago
topic Neuroscience
url https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC8521200/
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/34671250
http://dx.doi.org/10.3389/fnagi.2021.710683
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