Potential of genistein-induced autophagy in the treatment of neurodegenerative diseases

Abstract

Development of therapies for neurodegenerative diseases, disorders characterized by progressing loss of neurons, is a great challenge for current medicine. Searching for drugs for these diseases is being proceeded in many laboratories in the world. To date, several therapeutical strategies have been proposed which, however, are either of insufficient efficacy or at the early preclinical stages. One of the newest concepts is elevated efficiency of degradation of protein aggregates which are causes of 70% of these diseases. Autophagy, i.e. lysosomal degradation of macromolecules, is a process which could be employed in such a strategy Searching for a compound which would not only stimulate autophagy but also reveal safety in a long-term usage and be able to cross the blood-brain-barrier led to studies on one of flavonoids, genistein which occurs at high concentrations in soy. Experiments with this compound indicated its enormous efficiency in removing protein aggregated formed by beta-amyloid, hyperphosphorylated tau protein, and mutant huntingtin. Moreover, using animal models of these diseases, correction of cognitive and motoric symptoms was demonstrated. Considering safety of genistein as well as its ability to crossing the blood-brain-barrier, one may assume that this molecule is a candidate for an effective drug in therapies of not only Alzheimer disease and Huntington disease, but also other disorders caused be protein aggregates. In this article, recent results of studies on the use of genistein in different models of neurodegenerative diseases are summarized, with special emphasis on its autophagy-dependent action.