小鼠主动脉横截图,黄色部分为巨噬细胞正在吞噬斑块
研究的通讯作者Babak Razani博士说:“我们对提高巨噬细胞降解垃圾的能力非常感兴趣,希望能将它们变成‘超级巨噬细胞’。”[6]
研究人员认为,海藻糖是很有潜力成为新的AS药物的,因为它的安全性已经有一定保证了。但是他们目前面对着一个很实际的问题——口服的海藻糖会被胃肠道中的酶降解,不能发挥效果,而注射实在是不够方便,如果进入临床,这会是一个很大的局限,研究人员也透露,他们目前正在寻找解决办法。奇点糕也希望“吃糖消斑块”能早日进入临床,帮助人们远离三高!
参考资料:
[1] Sergin, I. et al. Exploiting macrophage autophagy-lysosomal biogenesis as a therapy for atherosclerosis. Nat. Commun. 8, 15750 doi:10.1038/ncomms15750 (2017).
[2] Klionsky, D. J. et al. Guidelines for the use and interpretation of assays for monitoring autophagy. Autophagy 12, 1–222 (2016).
[3] Sarkar, S., Davies, J. E., Huang, Z., Tunnacliffe, A., & Rubinsztein, D. C. (2007). Trehalose, a novel mTOR-independent autophagy enhancer, accelerates the clearance of mutant huntingtin and α-synuclein. Journal of Biological Chemistry, 282(8), 5641-5652.
[4] Sardiello, M. et al. A gene network regulating lysosomal biogenesis and function. Science 325, 473–477 (2009).
[5] Settembre, C. et al. TFEB controls cellular lipid metabolism through a starvation-induced autoregulatory loop. Nat. Cell Biol.15, 647–658 (2013).
[6] https://medicine.wustl.edu/news/mouse-study-shows-type-sugar-may-treat-atherosclerosis/