What is klotho? An enzyme that helps us to be longer-lived and that protects the body from certain ills associated with the passage of time. Scientists have long known that having it in abundance increases your chances of leading a longer, healthier life, and now they have found that cause and effect also occurs in the brain.
In the brain, klotho accumulates in vascular structures called choroid plexuses, groups of cells responsible for forming the cerebrospinal fluid that constitutes a protective barrier between the central nervous system and the blood.
Now, a team of scientists from the Gladstone Institutes (United States) led by neurologist Lennart Mucke has investigated why klotho accumulates in the choroid plexuses and not elsewhere in the brain, and has discovered that this protein reduces levels of inflammation brain, one of the causes of cognitive decline associated with old age. His work has just been published in the scientific journal PNAS.
Guardian molecules
Mucke explains that “in tests with mice we have found that the levels of klotho in the choroid plexuses fall with age. When we cause this decrease in an experiment, we find that brain inflammation increases. “
The neurologist and his team investigated how this phenomenon affects other regions of the brain and discovered that the barrier between the brain and the immune system weakens when there is little klotho, so much so that it allows cells involved in the immune response to enter the brain and inflammatory molecules, elements that induce brain changes that cause a deterioration of cognitive functions. From this it follows that in those who have little klotho, infections can lead to brain malfunction.
This is what Lennart Mucke thinks, as well as researching professor of Neurology and Neuroscience at the University of California in San Francisco: “The molecular changes observed in our study suggest that the decrease in the levels of klotho in the choroid plexuses contributes to cognitive deterioration. of the elderly, and it does so through brain inflammation. Our finding may help explain why the intellectual functions of many older people hospitalized for infections such as pneumonia and urine decline. This complication tends to be more evident and severe in people with Alzheimer’s, a condition in which inflammation appears to be a key trigger. “
After showing that the decrease in klotho in the choroid plexuses leads to brain inflammation, Mucke and his team plan new experiments to see if increasing the amount of this enzyme reduces the decline in intellectual faculties linked to aging.
