Diabetes mellitus and Alzheimer's disease: Vacuolar adenosine triphosphatase as a potential link.

Globally, the incidence of diabetes mellitus (DM) and Alzheimer's disease (AD) is increasing year by year, causing a huge economic and social burden, and their pathogenesis and aetiology have been proven to have a certain correlation. In recent years, more and more studies have shown that vacuolar adenosine triphosphatases (v-ATPases) in eukaryotes, which are biomolecules regulating lysosomal acidification and glycolipid metabolism, play a key role in DM and AD. This article describes the role of v-ATPase in DM and AD, including its role in glycolysis, insulin secretion and insulin resistance (IR), as well as its relationship with lysosomal acidification, autophagy and ß-amyloid (Aß). In DM, v-ATPase is involved in the regulation of glucose metabolism and IR. v-ATPase is closely related to glycolysis. On the one hand, v-ATPase affects the rate of glycolysis by affecting the secretion of insulin and changing the activities of key glycolytic enzymes hexokinase (HK) and phosphofructokinase 1 (PFK-1). On the other hand, glucose is the main regulator of this enzyme, and the assembly and activity of v-ATPase depend on glucose, and glucose depletion will lead to its decomposition and inactivation. In addition, v-ATPase can also regulate free fatty acids, thereby improving IR. In AD, v-ATPase can not only improve the abnormal brain energy metabolism by affecting lysosomal acidification and autophagy but also change the deposition of Aß by affecting the production and degradation of Aß. Therefore, v-ATPase may be the bridge between DM and AD.

[Responses of vegetation growth to temperature during 1982-2015 in Xinjiang, China.] / 1982­2015年新疆地区植被生长对气温的响应.

Combined with the normalized difference vegetation index (NDVI) dataset, vegetation type data, and meteorological data, we revealed the variation of vegetation growth responses to air temperature in the growing-season during 1982-2015 in Xinjiang, using the moving-windows based partial correlation analysis, the unitary linear regression analysis and GIS spatial analysis. Results showed that, in the whole growing-seasons of study period, there was a significant downturn trend in the responses of vegetation growth to temperature. At the seasonal scale, the downturn trend was obvious especially in summer and autumn, while it was in adverse in spring. During the whole gro-wing season, the responses of different vegetation types to air temperature change showed a decreasing trend. Seasonally, the responses of grassland and forest to temperature change showed a significant increase, while that of shrubland and desert were exactly the opposite in spring. The responses of all natural vegetation (grassland, shrubland, desert and forest) to temperature change showed a significant decreasing trend in summer, whereas their responses in autumn had no significant statistical characteristics. Spatially, the decreasing influence of temperature on the vegetation growth during the growing season in Xinjiang was universal, which might be due to the change in precipitation and solar radiation.