| Alzheimer's Disease (AD) is a progressive neurodegenerating disease commonly found in the elderly population. Currently, over 4 million Americans are affected with this detrimental disease, and it is predicted that the number will increase to 37 million by 2025. With many literatures and previous studies on dietary fat intake's effect on the vascular system and other organs of the body, dietary fat intake may very well play an important role in causation and progression of AD. However, it is unclear whether free fatty acids (FFA) can induce injury and activate astrocytes and neurons to trigger a cascade of further downstream effects. All of these indicate the complexity of AD pathogenesis. We found that 3 hours of incubation of human astrocytes with triglycerid-rich lipoproteins (TGRLs) from postprandial TGRLs resulted in increase formation of intracellular lipid droplets. The lipid droplets were identified using coherent antistockes Raman spectroscopy (CARS). Electron Paramagnetic Resonance spectroscopy (EPR) was used to verify extracellular uptake of lipolysis products that result in biogenesis of intracellular lipid droplets. Furthermore, our results suggest that serotonin (5-HT) is a better transmitter to use for the microscope set up that we have than glutamate. |
