Recessive parkinsonism and mitochondrial function

National Institute On Aging

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Abstract

A few years ago, we found that the enzyme hexokinase controlled recruitment of parkin, an E3 ligase associated with recessive Parkinson's disease (PD), to mitochondrial. This work implicated Akt, which is also thought to be important in aging, in cellular signaling pathways relevant for Parkinson's disease. We have extended this work to show that the activation of PINK1, a mitochondrial kinase also associated with recessive PD, depends on insulin-dependent Akt signaling. Interestingly, in independent work we have also identified changes in hexokinase in vivo in DJ-1 deficient mice, linking these three genes for the same human disease into a complex but related pathway.