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(Last updated 10/29/99) - OSU Newsfeatures Service
10/28/99
CHEMICAL MARKER FOUND FOR BRAIN DAMAGE IN ALZHEIMER'S DISEASE
COLUMBUS, Ohio -- Scientists have identified a common molecular marker for three major lesions found in brains of people with late-stage Alzheimer's disease.
The finding could lead to a better understanding of how Alzheimer's disease progresses. In the future, it also could serve as a biochemical marker to help diagnose or stage the disease, and determine the effectiveness of new treatments.
"For the first time, we have established a common denominator among the three major types of damage that arise in the brain during Alzheimer's disease," said Jeffrey Kuret, associate professor of medical biochemistry at Ohio State University. "This will give us information about how this damage occurs and perhaps what pathway is involved in its development."
The study, which was led by Kuret, appears in the October issue of the American Journal of Pathology.
It is a follow-up of earlier work that first suggested the association of high levels of three key enzymes with Alzheimer's tissue in the test tube.
The present study confirmed that high levels of the enzymes are also associated with damaged neurons in thin slices of intact brain tissue from people who died of Alzheimer's disease.
The three enzymes belong to the casein kinase-1 family of enzymes. One of the enzymes, the delta kinase, was present in Alzheimer's patients at levels more than 30 times that found in brain tissue from aged-matched controls.
As predicted from their earlier work, the researchers found all three enzymes associated with two types of lesions known as neurofibrillary tangles and neuritic plaques.
"The real surprise came when we also found high levels of the enzymes in a third type of lesion, called granulovacuolar degeneration bodies," said Kuret. "This was a complete surprise." It was also an important surprise.
"This is the first molecular marker for granulovacuolar degeneration bodies," he said. "Until now, there has been no reliable molecular tag that enabled scientists to purify these bodies and study their composition."
A major problem in Alzheimer's research is trying to understand how the three types of cellular damage occur, and how they are interrelated," he said. "The presence of high levels of casein kinase enzymes might reflect a common pathway in the generation of these lesions."
Next, Kuret will look at casein kinase levels in other neurodegenerative diseases. He also plans to study the genetic control of the enzymes to understand why they are present at such high levels.
Funding for this research was provided by the National Institutes of Health and the Alzheimer's Association. The work involved researchers from Northwestern University Medical School; Nathan Kline Institute for Psychiatric Research, Orangeburg, New York, the ICOS Corporation, Botbell, Washington; and Rush-Presbyterian-St. Luke's Medical Center, Chicago, Illinois.
Contact: Jeffrey Kuret, Ph.D., (614) 688-5899
Written by Darrell E. Ward, (614) 292-8456; Ward.25@osu.edu