Chemistry of non-protein amino acids

非蛋白质氨基酸的化学

• 批准号: 327296-2013
• 负责人: Murch, Susan
• 金额: $ 2.04万
• 依托单位: University of British Columbia
• 依托单位国家: 加拿大
• 项目类别: Discovery Grants Program - Individual
• 财政年份: 2017
• 资助国家: 加拿大
• 起止时间: 2017-01-01 至 2018-12-31
• 项目状态: 已结题
• 来源: https://www.nserc-crsng.gc.ca/ase-oro/Details-Detailles_eng.asp?id=632559
• 关键词: Chemistry; non; protein; amino; acids

The human diet is made up almost entirely of plants or animals that consumed plants and plant chemistry affects human health in several ways. Plants are the source of vitamins, nutrients and antioxidants that are essential to good health but an average leaf contains up to 30,000 distinct chemicals and virtually nothing is known about the vast majority of these. Beta-methylamino-L-alanine (BMAA) is a naturally-occurring non-protein amino acid that was originally discovered in cycad seeds and is produced by cyanobacteria that live in symbiosis with plants or are free living in fresh water or marine environments. The 'BMAA Hypothesis' postulated that BMAA could accumulate from cyanobacteria to plants to the animals that feed on the plants and to people who eat the plants and animals and that high exposures to BMAA may induce progressive neurodegenerative diseases such as ALS or Alzheimer's Disease. BMAA was originally described in studies to understand an epidemic of progressive neurodegenerative disease in Guam and BMAA accumulation has been demonstrated in various food webs including the traditional diet of the Chamorro people of Guam, as well as blue crabs, shrimp and fish of South Florida, oysters and fish of the Baltic Sea, and shark fins from the Atlantic. However, different labs have reported remarkably very different results in studies to identify and quantify BMAA in cyanobacteria, foods and human tissues leading to controversy that complicates data interpretation and must be resolved before the BMAA hypothesis can be fully tested. We are proposing a detailed analytical study that will provide validated methods and tools for monitoring of food chains and environmental samples and will determine the mechanism and conditions of BMAA production by cyanobacteria. Together, these studies are the first important steps toward evaluating the BMAA hypothesis and potentially toward understanding neurodegenerative disease.

人类饮食几乎完全由食用植物和植物化学的动植物组成，以多种方式影响人类健康。植物是维生素，养分和抗氧化剂的来源，对身体健康至关重要，但平均叶子含有多达30,000种不同的化学物质，几乎对其中的绝大多数没有什么了解。 β-甲基氨基氨基 - L-丙氨酸（BMAA）是一种天然存在的非蛋白质氨基酸，最初是在Cycad种子中发现的，是由氰基细菌生产的，它与植物的共生性生活或自由生活在淡水或海洋环境中。 “ BMAA假设”假设，BMAA可以从蓝细菌到植物到以植物和食用动植物为食的动物，而对BMAA的高暴露可能会诱导诸如ALS或阿尔茨海默氏病等进行性神经退行性疾病。最初在研究中描述了BMAA，以了解关岛和BMAA积累中的进行性神经退行性疾病的流行，包括关岛的Chamorro人的传统饮食，以及南佛罗里达州南佛罗里达州的蓝蟹和鱼类的蓝蟹和鱼类，牡蛎和牡蛎，波罗的海和shark Fins的牡蛎和鱼类。但是，不同的实验室报告的研究结果非常不同，以识别和量化蓝细菌，食品和人体组织中的BMAA，导致争议使数据解释复杂化，并且必须在BMAA假设进行全面测试之前解决。我们提出了一项详细的分析研究，该研究将为监测食物链和环境样品的验证方法和工具，并将确定蓝细菌生产BMAA的机理和条件。总之，这些研究是评估BMAA假设的第一个重要步骤，并有潜在地了解神经退行性疾病。