Borges Alice C, Broersen Kerensa, Leandro Paula, Fernandes Tiago G
Department of Bioengineering and iBB - Institute for Bioengineering and Biosciences, Instituto Superior Técnico, Universidade de Lisboa, Lisbon, Portugal.
Associate Laboratory i4HB - Institute for Health and Bioeconomy, Instituto Superior Técnico, Universidade de Lisboa, Lisbon, Portugal.
Front Mol Neurosci. 2022 Jan 10;14:787242. doi: 10.3389/fnmol.2021.787242. eCollection 2021.
Phenylketonuria is a recessive genetic disorder of amino-acid metabolism, where impaired phenylalanine hydroxylase function leads to the accumulation of neurotoxic phenylalanine levels in the brain. Severe cognitive and neuronal impairment are observed in untreated/late-diagnosed patients, and even early treated ones are not safe from life-long sequelae. Despite the wealth of knowledge acquired from available disease models, the chronic effect of Phenylketonuria in the brain is still poorly understood and the consequences to the aging brain remain an open question. Thus, there is the need for better predictive models, able to recapitulate specific mechanisms of this disease. Human induced pluripotent stem cells (hiPSCs), with their ability to differentiate and self-organize in multiple tissues, might provide a new exciting platform to model specific PKU-derived neuronal impairment. In this review, we gather what is known about the impact of phenylalanine in the brain of patients and highlight where hiPSC-derived organoids could contribute to the understanding of this disease.
苯丙酮尿症是一种氨基酸代谢的隐性遗传疾病,其中苯丙氨酸羟化酶功能受损会导致大脑中具有神经毒性的苯丙氨酸水平积累。在未经治疗/诊断较晚的患者中会观察到严重的认知和神经元损伤,即使是早期接受治疗的患者也无法避免终身后遗症。尽管从现有的疾病模型中获得了丰富的知识,但苯丙酮尿症对大脑的慢性影响仍知之甚少,其对衰老大脑的影响仍是一个悬而未决的问题。因此,需要更好的预测模型,能够概括这种疾病的特定机制。人类诱导多能干细胞(hiPSC)具有在多种组织中分化和自我组织的能力,可能会提供一个令人兴奋的新平台来模拟特定的苯丙酮尿症衍生的神经元损伤。在这篇综述中,我们收集了关于苯丙氨酸对患者大脑影响的已知信息,并强调了hiPSC衍生的类器官在哪些方面有助于理解这种疾病。