Hyperglycemia alters astrocyte metabolism and inhibits astrocyte proliferation

Wenjun Li, Gourav Roy Choudhury, Ali Winters, Jude Prah, Wenping Lin, Ran Liu, Shao Hua Yang

Research output: Contribution to journalArticlepeer-review

32 Scopus citations

Abstract

Diabetes milieu is a complex metabolic disease that has been known to associate with high risk of various neurological disorders. Hyperglycemia in diabetes could dramatically increase neuronal glucose levels which leads to neuronal damage, a phenomenon referred to as glucose neurotoxicity. On the other hand, the impact of hyperglycemia on astrocytes has been less explored. Astrocytes play important roles in brain energy metabolism through neuron-astrocyte coupling. As the component of blood brain barrier, glucose might be primarily transported into astrocytes, hence, impose direct impact on astrocyte metabolism and function. In the present study, we determined the effect of high glucose on the energy metabolism and function of primary astrocytes. Hyperglycemia level glucose (25 mM) induced cell cycle arrest and inhibited proliferation and migration of primary astrocytes. Consistently, high glucose decreased cyclin D1 and D3 expression. High glucose enhanced glycolytic metabolism, increased ATP and glycogen content in primary astrocytes. In addition, high glucose activated AMP-activated protein kinase (AMPK) signaling pathway in astrocytes. In summary, our in vitro study indicated that hyperglycemia might impact astrocyte energy metabolism and function phenotype. Our study provides a potential mechanism which may underlie the diabetic cerebral neuropathy and warrant further in vivo study to determine the effect of hyperglycemia on astrocyte metabolism and function.

Original languageEnglish
Pages (from-to)674-684
Number of pages11
JournalAging and Disease
Volume9
Issue number4
DOIs
StatePublished - 2018

Keywords

  • AMP-activated protein kinase
  • Astrocyte
  • Diabetes
  • Metabolism

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