KIST, 독성 물질 퀴놀린산이 낮은 농도에서는 뇌의 '청소 세포'를 깨운다는 것 확인

Translation

In joint research with the team of Professor 이정희 at Boston University's medical school, a team at the Korea Institute of Science and Technology (KIST) led by 류훈 and 이현범 confirmed that quinolinic acid, known as a toxic substance, wakes up the brain's cleaning cells at low concentrations. Quinolinic acid is known to damage nerve cells when its concentration rises. At low concentrations, however, it was found to do the opposite and raise the waste-clearing ability of microglia, the brain's cleaning cells. In cell experiments, when low-dose quinolinic acid stimulated microglia, a key enzyme in the pathway that makes phospholipids, the fat component of cell membranes, was activated, and the 'PE phospholipid' produced then bound to GABARAP, a protein involved in autophagy. When low-dose quinolinic acid was administered into the brains of Alzheimer's model mice, amyloid beta plaques in the hippocampus fell significantly within days and short- and long-term memory improved to the level of normal mice. The results were published in the international journal Signal Transduction and Targeted Therapy, and the team plans to pursue preclinical validation with pharmaceutical and biotech companies.