Biochemical and Molecular Biological Insights into Aluminum Toxicity in Biology and Medicine

It was shown that the rate of excretion of aluminum in the urine was assumed to have a limiting value. Therefore, an excess intake of aluminum indicated that the aluminum content in the body remained high for several days after the absorption of aluminum from the intestine. Accumulation of aluminum in the body has been linked to disease conditions. The toxic effects of aluminum to neuronal cells were examined to show apoptotic cell death via endoplasmic reticulum stress, implicating an influence of aluminum on the gene expression. Also, it was shown that astrocyte-neuron interaction was important in the process of toxic effects in the central nervous system. In addition, renin was the only positively identified up-regulated gene in kidneys determined by DNA sequencing. The up-regulation of renin was confirmed by RT-PCR and Western blotting experiments in the dose dependent treatments and the time course observation in mice. The up-regulation of the renin expression by aluminum is a strong indication of the influence of aluminum on the renin-angiotensin-aldosterone-system, resulting in the induction of essential hypertension. Key-words: aluminum, urinary excretion, astrocytes, neuron-astrocyte interaction, neurodegenerative disease, renin, essential hypertension