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Updated: Mar 25, 2026

Rapid One-step Enzymatic Synthesis and All-aqueous Purification of Trehalose Analogues
Published on: February 17, 2017
Mystery solved: Trehalose kickstarts autophagy by blocking glucose transport
Pablo Mardones1, David C Rubinsztein2, Claudio Hetz3
1Biomedical Neuroscience Institute, Faculty of Medicine, University of Chile, Santiago, Chile. Center for Geroscience, Brain Health and Metabolism, Santiago, Chile. Program of Cellular and Molecular Biology, Center for Molecular Studies of the Cell, Institute of Biomedical Sciences, University of Chile, Santiago, Chile.
Abstract:
Although vertebrates cannot synthesize the natural disaccharide trehalose, exogenous administration of trehalose to mammalian cells may be beneficial for protein misfolding disorders. In this issue, DeBosch et al. show that trehalose may also be useful in treating nonalcoholic fatty liver disease and identify inhibition of cellular glucose import through SLC2A (also known as GLUT) transporters as a mechanism by which trehalose stimulates autophagy through the adenosine monophosphate-activated protein kinase (AMPK).
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