Vesicle glutamate transporters and Alzheimer’s disease / 国际药学研究杂志

Vesicle glutamate transporter (VGLUT) specifically transfers glutamate into synaptic vesicle, determines the amount of glutamate released into the synaptic cleft, then regulates the efficiency of glutamatergic synaptic transmission. VGLUT plays an important role in the pathogenesis of Alzheimer's diseases (AD). VGLUT is significantly decreased in the brain of AD patients and closely correlated with cognitive dysfunction, beta- amyloid aggregation, tau protein phosphorylation and glutamate excitoxicity. VGLUT, the possible specific biomarker of glutamatergic neuron, has been considered a potential drug target in the treatment of AD and biomarkers in the early diagnosis of AD. There are some advances on chemicals targeting on VGLUT.