The Durk Pearson & Sandy Shaw^®
Life Extension News^TM
Volume 13 No. 2 • April 2010

Trehalose is a natural disaccharide found in many non-mammalian species that protects cells against various environmental stresses (for example, by acting as an osmolyte). Trehalose can be found in our FoldRight™ formulation of osmolytes that act as chaperones to help proteins fold properly. A recent paper¹ (thanks again, Will) identifies trehalose as an enhancer of autophagy, a cell-digesting process that, for instance, allows for the clearance of aggregate-prone proteins such as mutant huntingtin fragments (Huntington’s disease), other polyQ mutations, mutant alpha-synucleins (as in Parkington’s and Alzheimer’s diseases), and tau (as in Alzheimer’s). Though trehalose enhances autophagy, it does not do so by inhibiting mTOR.

The recent paper¹ notes that, among other things, trehalose inhibits amyloid formation of insulin in vitro and prevents aggregation of beta-amyloid associated with Alzheimer’s disease. The authors explain that the clearance of aggregate-prone proteins such as those mentioned above depends strongly on macroautophagy, generally referred to as autophagy. In this paper, the authors identify a novel role for trehalose as an autophagy inducer, leading to enhanced clearance of aggregation-prone proteins and protecting cells from subsequent pro-apoptotic insults resulting therefrom.

Reference

1. Sarkar et al. Trehalose, a novel mTOR-independent autophagy enhancer, accelerates the clearance of mutant Huntingtin and alpha-synuclein. J Biol Chem 282(8):5641-52 (2007).