Aquaporins and neurodegenerative diseases.
Aquaporins (AQPs) are a family of widely distributed membrane-inserted water channel proteins providing a pathway for osmotically-driven water, glycerol, urea or ions transport through cell membranes and mechanisms to control particular aspects of homeostasis. Beside their physiological expression patterns in Central Nervous System (CNS), it is conceivable that AQPs are also abnormally expressed in some pathological conditions interesting CNS (e.g. neurodegenerative diseases) in which preservation of brain homeostasis is at risk.The purpose of this review was to take in consideration those neurodegenerative diseases in whose pathogenetic processes it was possible to hypothesize some alterations in CNS AQPs expression or modulation leading to damages of brain water homeostasis.
Division of Human Anatomy, Department of Biomedical Sciences and Biotechnologies, University of Brescia, Viale Europa 11, 25123, Brescia, Italy. foglio@med.unibs.it
Eleonora
E
Foglio
Luigi Fabrizio
LF
Rodella