Mechanisms of Melatonin in Alleviating Alzheimer’s Disease

作者：Mayuri Shukla, Piyarat Govitrapong, Parichart Boontem, Russel Joseph Reiter, Jutamaad Satayavivad · 发表于：Current Neuropharmacology · 年份：2017 · DOI：10.2174/1570159x15666170313123454 · 被引用次数：195 · 研究领域：Circadian rhythm and melatonin、Alzheimer's disease research and treatments、Tryptophan and brain disorders

Alzheimer's disease (AD) is a chronic, progressive and prevalent neurodegenerative disease characterized by the loss of higher cognitive functions and an associated loss of memory. The thus far "incurable" stigma for AD prevails because of variations in the success rates of different treatment protocols in animal and human studies. Among the classical hypotheses explaining AD pathogenesis, the amyloid hypothesis is currently being targeted for drug development. The underlying concept is to prevent the formation of these neurotoxic peptides which play a central role in AD pathology and trigger a multispectral cascade of neurodegenerative processes post-aggregation. This could possibly be achieved by pharmacological inhibition of β- or γ-secretase or stimulating the nonamyloidogenic α-secretase. Melatonin the pineal hormone is a multifunctioning indoleamine. Production of this amphiphilic molecule diminishes with advancing age and this decrease runs parallel with the progression of AD which itself explains the potential benefits of melatonin in line of development and devastating consequences of the disease progression. Our recent studies have revealed a novel mechanism by which melatonin stimulates the nonamyloidogenic processing and inhibits the amyloidogenic processing of β-amyloid precursor protein (βAPP) by stimulating α -secretases and consequently down regulating both β- and γ-secretases at the transcriptional level. In this review, we discuss and evaluate the neuroprote...