Sachin P. Patil
patilsac(at)msu.edu
1103 Engineering Building
517.432.2394
Hometown: Kolhapur, India
Undergraduate Institution:
University of Mumbai, India
Interests: Reading, Listening to music, Yoga, Working out.
Project title: Involvement of Saturated Fatty Acids in Causing Pathophysiological and Metabolic Changes Associated with Alzheimer's Disease.
Project Description: My research is particularly focused on
studying potential role of saturated fatty acids in causing Alzheimer's disease (AD). AD is a neurodegenerative
disease, clinically characterized by progressive loss of memory and cognitive functions,
resulting in severe dementia. Histochemically AD is characterized by loss of neurons, the
accumulation of amyloid beta protein (A beta) in senile plaques, and the accumulation of
abnormally phosphorylated tau (t) in neurofibrillary tangles (NFTs). Although epidemiological
and animal model studies suggest that high fat diet significantly increases the risk for
developing AD, the basic mechanism by which fatty acids cause AD is not clear. Therefore,
the primary focus of my research has been to establish this underlying mechanism, which is
vital in developing novel therapeutic strategies for AD.
In this context, we showed that saturated fatty acids (palmitic and stearic fatty
acids) cause both A beta production and abnormal phosphorylation of t in rat cortical neurons,
two of the main characteristics of AD. Furthermore, we found that these fatty acid-induced
changes observed in neurons were mediated by astrocytes (astrocytes are a type of glial cells i
n brain, which outnumber neurons by approximately 10 to 1). Thus, our studies
place "astroglial fatty acid metabolism" at the center of the pathogenic cascade in AD,
manipulation of which through various pharmacological or molecular biological means may help
in preventing and/or treating AD. The study is underway in our group in this regard, which
warrants extended multidisciplinary efforts.
PI: Christina Chan