The Alteration of ZiBuPiYin Recipe on Proteomic Profiling of Forebrain Postsynaptic Density of db/db Mice with Diabetes-Associated Cognitive Decline.

Diabetes-associated cognitive decline (DACD) is a brain injury induced by diabetes mellitus, with cognitive impairment as the major symptom. Growing evidence has revealed that DACD is correlated with disruptions in synapses involved in cognition. Within synapses, more specifically in areas of postsynaptic density (PSD), there is a high concentration of proteins that receive and transduce synaptic information. In the present study, to identify the differentially expressed PSD proteins among DACD mice, ZiBuPiYin recipe (ZBPYR)-treated DACD mice and control mice, we applied isobaric tags for relative and absolute quantitation (iTRAQ) with LC-MS/MS technology, by which three biological replicates and three technical replicates were examined. A total of 24 and 23 differentially expressed proteins were observed in control versus DACD mice and in DACD versus ZBPYR-treated DACD mice, respectively. Notably, we found 'Protein processing in endoplasmic reticulum' and 'PI3K-Akt signaling pathway' might be impaired in DACD pathogenesis, while Growth factor receptor-bound protein 2 might be a crucial protein as a molecular target of the neuroprotective effects of ZBPYR. To our knowledge, this is the first study to provide a reference proteome map for DACD and ZBPYR-treated DACD mouse forebrain PSD to aid understanding the underlying mechanisms of DACD and ZBPYR.