From left: Jason Yeung, Thulani Palpagama, Andrea Kwakowsky and Joshua Walby
Jason H. Yeung, Joshua L. Walby, Thulani H. Palpagama, Clinton Turner, Henry J. Waldvogel, Richard L.M. Faull, Andrea Kwakowsky have published a paper in Brain Pathology entitled, ‘Glutamatergic receptor expression changes in the Alzheimer’s disease hippocampus and entorhinal cortex’.
The first author of the article is Jason Yeung. He is a 6th year medical student and he has completed a Bachelor of Medical Science (Honours) degree at the Centre for Brain Research, Department of Anatomy and Medical Imaging. Jason Yeung, Josh Walby (Bachelor of Science (Honours)) and Thulani Palpagama (PhD candidate) were supervised by Dr Andrea Kwakowsky and co-supervised by Distinguished Professor Sir Richard Faull.
Alzheimer’s Disease (AD) is the leading form of dementia worldwide. Currently, the pathological mechanisms underlying AD are not well understood. Although the glutamatergic system is extensively implicated in its pathophysiology, there is a gap in knowledge regarding the expression of glutamate receptors in the AD brain.
The teams findings provide evidence of specific glutamatergic receptor subunit changes in the AD hippocampus and entorhinal cortex, in brain regions severely affected by the disease. The results warrant further investigation into the potential of these glutamate receptor subunits as novel therapeutic targets. Glutamate receptor subunit-, cell type-, and brain region-specific therapies may provide a fine-tune targeted approach to the management and treatment of AD, offering an interesting avenue for future drug development.
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Stewart Masson, Brie Sorrenson, Peter Shepherd and Troy Merry have published an article entitled ‘β-catenin regulates muscle glucose transport via actin remodeling and M-cadherin binding’ in Molecular Metabolism
This paper builds on many years of work in MMP that has established a novel role for adheres junctions and their component proteins in regulating the trafficking of vesicles in the cell. Skeletal muscle glucose disposal following a meal is mediated through insulin-stimulated movement of the GLUT4-containing vesicles to the cell surface. This paper found a novel role for β-catenin in regulating this process.
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