A cell nucleus from a normal, healthy brain is shown at left. The lamin nucleoskeleton forms the perimeter around the nucleus. By contrast, tunnel-like anomalies are evident in the nucleus of the Alzheimer’s disease-affected cell shown at right. This image is from the laboratory of Bess Frost, Ph.D., of the School of Medicine and Barshop Institute for Longevity and Aging Studies at The University of Texas Health Science Center at San Antonio. Credit: Laboratory of Bess Frost, Ph.D./UT Health Science Center San Antonio
A new finding offers a insight into one of the earliest biological events of Alzheimer’s disease and is expected to open new avenues of study. Neuronal cell death in Alzheimer’s disease is linked to disruption of a lamin nucleoskeleton that surrounds the nucleus of the cells. The team made this finding in a fruit fly disease model initially and confirmed it in postmortem brain tissue of people who had Alzheimer’s disease, whose families donated their brains to research.
Dr. Frost and her colleagues used super-resolution microscopy to analyze the fruit fly and human specimens. They found peculiar features that looked like tunnels in the lamin of Alzheimer’s-affected specimens. The team also studied a fruit fly model of Huntington’s disease and did not find any problems with the lamin. “So, at least compared to one other neurodegenerative disease, lamin dysfunction seems to be specific to Alzheimer’s disease,” Dr. Frost said.
A state-of-the-art tissue biorepository will be part of the Institute for Alzheimer and Neurodegenerative Diseases announced by the Health Science Center last September. The biobank will be linked to a database containing the health history of each donor.
https://news.uthscsa.edu/2016/02/03/mesh-like-scaffold-is-disordered-in-alzheimers-affected-cells/
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