Exercise and Alzheimer's Disease: A Review of Research Based on Post￣translational Modification of Tau Protein / 中国生物化学与分子生物学报

ABSTRACT

Alzheimer' s disease (AD) is an age-related neurodegenerative disease which seriously damages the physical and mental health of the elderly and causes huge economic pressure to the society. However, the pathogenesis of AD is not completely elucidated. There is still no effective drug to cure AD in clinical practice. Tau protein is a soluble and non-aggregating microtubule-related protein, which can stabilize microtubule structure. The structure and function of Tau protein are abnormal in AD' s brain while under pathological conditions, and the abnormal Tau protein aggregates to insoluble neurofibrillary tangles which damages microtubules and leads to cognitive dysfunction. These changes of Tau protein are regulated by a variety of post-translational modifications, which directly change the properties and functions of proteins by attaching specific chemical moieties to Tau protein's C-terminus or N-terminus. It's confirmed that a variety of Tau post-translational modifications, like phosphorylation, glycosylation, acetylation and sumoylation is abnormal in AD's brain, which is closely related to Tau degradation and the accumulation of toxic substances. In this review, we summarized the latest progress supporting the role of exercise regulated Tau post-translational modification in the prevention and treatment of Alzheimer's disease. Firstly, exercise inhibits tau protein hyperphosphorylation by suppressing the activity of GSK-3β and MAPKs and possibly by up-regulating the activity of PP2A. Secondly, exercise increases tau protein O-GlcNAcylation by up-regulating the expression of GLUT1 and GLUT3, also possibly by regulating the balance of activity of OGT and OGA. Thirdly, exercise decreases tau protein acetylation possibly by inhibiting p300 and activating SIRT1; exercise regulates the acetylation of Tau KXGS possibly by inhibiting HDAC6. Lastly, exercise inhibits abnormal Tau sumoylation possibly by regulating the co-location sites of phosphorylation and sumoylation.