Neurons to their own rescue?

-Ritwika Chowdhury, Amity University Kolkata

Mitochondria is responsible for the activity of the neurons. Thus, mitochondrial dysfunction often links to some of the most critical and destructive forms of neurodegeneration, such as Parkinson’s disease, different ataxias and several peripheral neuropathies.
Neurons have very little or no capacity to adapt their energy metabolism to challenging conditions as they are are terminally differentiated cells. The task was to find if the degenerating neurons shall activate a program of metabolic resilience.
The Krebs cycle anaplerosis, a form of metabolic rewiring, was seen to make neurons resistant to a very rapidly progressing degeneration. This finding further showed that it had a protective role. On anaplerosis being blocked, it was seen that neurons died at a much faster rate and the disease became more severe.
This in turn gave a new insights into the processes leading to neurodegeneration.
These findings shall possibly contribute in developing therapeutic approaches to prolong neuronal survival. It shall also improve function in patients with mitochondrial and other types of neurodegenerative diseases.

Source: Neuronal metabolic rewiring promotes resilience to neurodegeneration caused by mitochondrial dysfunction,  E. MOTORI, I. ATANASSOV, S. M. V. KOCHAN, K. FOLZ-DONAHUE, V. SAKTHIVELU, P. GIAVALISCO, N. TONI, J. PUYAL, N.-G. LARSSON, SCIENCE ADVANCES 28 AUG 2020 : EABA8271, https://doi.org/10.1126/sciadv.aba8271