Neuronal glycolysis: focus on developmental morphogenesis and localized subcellular functions

ABSTRACT

Glycolysis is a metabolic pathway that directly generates adenosine triphosphate (ATP), provides metabolic intermediates for anabolism, and supports mitochondrial oxidative phosphorylation. This review addresses recent advances in our understanding of the functions of neuronal glycolysis during the development of neuronal morphogenesis, focusing on the emergent concept that neuronal glycolysis serves local subcellular bioenergetic roles in maintaining neuronal function. The current evidence indicates that glycolysis is subcellularly targeted to specific organelles and molecular machinery to locally supply bioenergetic support for defined subcellular mechanisms underlying neuronal morphogenesis (i.e. axon extension, axon retraction and axonal transport). Thus, the concept of glycolysis as a “housekeeping” mechanism in neurons would benefit revision and future work aim to further define its subcellular functions at varied developmental stages.

KEYWORDS:

• Bioenergetics
• axon
• actin
• glycolysis
• mitochondria

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author(s).

Author contributions

G. Gallo was the sole contributor.

Data availability statement

This is a review article and contains no data.

Additional information

Funding

This work was supported by NIH NINDS R56NS128049 to GG.