Topic: polyglucosan bodies

Corpora amylacea (CAs) are a type of polyglucosan bodies that are generally found in a variety of organs during aging, including the human brain. While CAs in the human brain mainly consist of abnormal glycogen molecules, they also contain a set of proteins including Ubiquitin and p62, which are usually involved in cellular degradation pathways. The abundance of CAs is strikingly increased in neurodegenerative conditions such as Alzheimer’s disease (AD), suggesting that the occurrence of CAs might either be a protective mechanism or a co-morbidity in the aging human brain. To understand the fo

Astrocytes are indispensable for brain function, yet show signs of age-related impairments. Importantly, these impairments can manifest, as shown in hippocampal astrocytes, in the form of a buildup of hypobranched glycogen molecules, known as polyglucosan bodies (PGBs). Although diseases like adult polyglucosan body disease and Lafora disease link PGBs to cognitive decline, the mechanism and clinical relevance of age-related PGB accumulation remain unclear. In our study of 32 fully sequenced BXD-type mouse strains, we observed a 400-fold variation in PGB burden among 16–18-month-old females. W