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Related Experiment Video

Updated: Nov 14, 2025

Rapid One-step Enzymatic Synthesis and All-aqueous Purification of Trehalose Analogues

Rapid One-step Enzymatic Synthesis and All-aqueous Purification of Trehalose Analogues

Published on: February 17, 2017

Trehalose-based neuroprotective autophagy inducers.

Giulia Assoni¹, Giulia Frapporti¹, Eleonora Colombo²

¹Department of Cellular, Computational And Integrative Biology, (CIBIO), Via Sommarive 9, I-38123 Povo, TN, Italy.

Bioorganic & Medicinal Chemistry Letters

|March 11, 2021

Summary

Researchers designed trehalose-based compounds to enhance autophagy. Trehalose-bearing gold nanoparticles (AuNPs) effectively induced autophagy at low concentrations without toxicity.

Keywords:

Autophagy Chemical probes Nanoparticles Neurodegeneration Prodrugs Trehalose

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Last Updated: Nov 14, 2025

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Area of Science:

Biochemistry
Nanotechnology
Cell Biology

Background:

Trehalose is a natural disaccharide with potential therapeutic properties, including autophagy induction.
Developing more potent and bioavailable trehalose derivatives is crucial for therapeutic applications.
Understanding the molecular mechanisms of trehalose-induced autophagy is an ongoing research area.

Purpose of the Study:

To design and synthesize novel trehalose-centered compounds as autophagy inducers.
To evaluate the potency and bioavailability of these compounds compared to free trehalose.
To investigate the molecular mechanism of action for promising candidates.

Main Methods:

Rational design and synthesis of trehalose intermediates, prodrugs, probes, and nanovectors.
Evaluation of autophagy-inducing properties of synthesized compounds in vitro.
Assessment of compound toxicity at effective concentrations.

Main Results:

Small molecule derivatives (compounds 2-11) showed no significant autophagy induction at sub-millimolar concentrations.
Trehalose-bearing polyethylene glycol-functionalized gold nanoparticles (PEG-AuNPs 12a) demonstrated measurable autophagy induction.
Autophagy induction by PEG-AuNPs 12a was observed at an estimated trehalose concentration of 40 μM.
No significant toxicity was observed for PEG-AuNPs 12a at the effective autophagy-inducing concentration.

Conclusions:

Trehalose-bearing nanovectors, specifically PEG-AuNPs, represent a promising strategy for enhanced autophagy induction.
Nanoparticle formulation significantly improves the efficacy of trehalose as an autophagy inducer.
This study provides a foundation for developing nanoparticle-based therapeutics targeting autophagy.