Biochemical and Biophysical Research Communications
- and -secretase: profound changes in Alzheimer’s disease
Section snippets
Materials and methods
Tissues. Samples of temporal cortex were obtained from 16 normal and 15 Alzheimer’s disease subjects (South West Brain Bank, UK). Tissue was taken from prospectively assessed Alzheimer patients, in whom diagnosis was confirmed by the presence of Alzheimer neuropathology; and from intellectually unimpaired subjects. Normal and Alzheimer brain tissue was selected from cases of similar mean age (73.2±8.4; 76.1±7.0: p=0.31) and post mortem delay (21.4±12.2; 26.3±9.6: p=0.22). Values are given for
Results and discussion
β-Secretase activity was increased to 185% of normal in sporadic Alzheimer patients (Fig. 1). Mean activity was 28.1±15.0 (range 5.9–48.9) for normal and 51.9±23.7 (range 15.1–93.6) for Alzheimer (p=0.003). t test was corrected for non-similar Gaussian distribution. Eight-seven per cent of Alzheimer samples had activity values above the normal mean. A sub-population (60%) of samples (differing by a SD from the mean) was increased to 235% of normal.
By contrast, mean α-secretase activity in
Acknowledgements
We are most grateful to Mrs. Sonia Matthews from the South West Brain Bank for her technical assistance. This research was supported by Bristol Research into Alzheimer’s and Care of the Elderly (BRACE) and The Gestetner Foundation.
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