Intern Reporter of Science and Technology Daily Zhang Jiaxin
Aging involves complex and diverse characteristics, such as inflammation, stress, metabolism changes, etc. Now, a team of scientists from the Salk Institute of Biology and UC San Diego have revealed another factor related to the aging process, a lipid called SGDG (3-sulfogalactosyldiacylglycerol), which decreases in the brain with age and may have anti-inflammatory effects.
This study, published in the recent "Natural Chemical Biology", helps uncover the molecular basis of brain aging, reveal new mechanisms of age-related neurological diseases, and provide opportunities for future therapeutic interventions.
Source: Alan Sagerhartlian, a professor at the PPE Biology Laboratory of the Clayton Foundation, said: "These SGDGs obviously play an important role in the aging process, and this discovery brings possibilities to our search for other key aging pathways that have been missing."
SGDG is a class of lipids that help maintain the structure, development and function of a healthy brain, while improperly regulated lipids are associated with aging and diseased brains. However, unlike genes and protein , lipids are not well understood and are often overlooked in aging studies.
This time, the research team made three discoveries about SGDG: in the brain, the blood lipid levels in elderly mice are very different from those in young mice; all members of the SGDG family and related lipids change significantly with age; SGDG may be regulated by known processes that regulate aging.
analysis shows that SGDG has anti-inflammatory properties, which may have an effect on neurodegenerative diseases and other neurological diseases involving increased brain inflammation.
The team also found that SGDG is present in the brains of humans and primates, suggesting that SGDG may play an important role in animals outside of mice, and further research is needed to demonstrate whether SGDG causes neuroinflammation in humans.
In the future, the team will study how SGDG is regulated with age and which proteins are responsible for making and breaking down SGDG, which may lead to new findings in genetic research related to aging.
Source: Science and Technology Daily
Editor: Shen Wei (internship)
Review: Yue Liang
