Affiliations: [a] School of Integrated Chinese and Western Medicine, Anhui University of Chinese Medicine, Hefei, China
| [b] Institute of Integrated Chinese and Western Medicine, Anhui Academy of Chinese Medicine, Hefei, China
| [c] Anhui Province Key Laboratory of Chinese Medicinal Formula, Hefei, China
| [d] Guangdong Provincial Key Laboratory of Molecular Target & Clinical Pharmacology, the Fifth Affiliated Hospital and School of Pharmaceutical Sciences, Guangzhou Medical University, Guangzhou, China
Correspondence:
[*]
Correspondence to: Hang Song, School of Integrated Chinese and Western Medicine, Anhui University of Chinese Medicine, Hefei, China. Tel.: +86 0551 68129037, Fax: +86 0551 68129040; E-mail: tosonghang@sina.com.; Biao Cai, School of Integrated Chinese and Western Medicine, Anhui University of Chinese Medicine, Hefei, China. Tel.: +86 0551 68129037, Fax: +86 0551 68129040; E-mail: caibiao@ahtcm.edu.cn.
Note: [1] These authors contributed equally to this work.
Abstract: It is widely recognized that Alzheimer’s disease (AD) has a complicate link to renin-angiotensin system (RAS). It is known that cerebrovascular disease has some connections with AD, but most of the studies are still conducted in parallel or independently. Although previous research came up with large number of hypotheses about the pathogenesis of AD, it does not include the mechanism of RAS-related regulation of AD. It has been found that many components of RAS have been changed in AD. For example, the multifunctional and high-efficiency vasoconstrictor Ang II and Ang III with similar effects are changed under the action of other RAS signal peptides; these signal peptides are believed to help improve nerve injury and cognitive function. These changes may lead to neuropathological changes of AD, and progressive defects of cognitive function, which are association with some hypotheses of AD. The role of RAS in AD gradually attracts our attention, and RAS deserved to be considered carefully in the pathogenesis of AD. This review discusses the mechanisms of RAS participating in the three current hypotheses of AD: neuroinflammation, oxidative stress and amyloid-β protein (Aβ) hypothesis, as well as the drugs that regulate RAS systems already in clinical or in clinical trials. It further demonstrates the importance of RAS in the pathogenesis of AD, not only because of its multiple aspects of participation, which may be accidental, but also because of the availability of RAS drugs, which can be reused as therapies of AD.
Keywords: Aβ hypothesis, Alzheimer’s disease, neuroinflammation, oxidative stress, renin-angiotensin system
