0000000000026696

AUTHOR

Roberta Cecchetti

Lymphocytic Mitochondrial Aconitase Activity is Reduced in Alzheimer's Disease and Mild Cognitive Impairment

Background: Specific mechanisms behind the role of oxidative/nitrosative stress and mitochondrial dysfunction in Alzheimer's disease (AD) pathogenesis remain elusive. Mitochondrial aconitase (ACO2) is a Krebs cycle enzyme sensitive to free radicalmediated damage. Objective: We assessed activity and expression of ACO2 extracted from blood lymphocytes of subjects with AD, mild cognitive impairment (MCI), older adults with normal cognition (OCN, age >= 65 years), and younger adults with normal cognition (YCN, age < 65 years). Plasma levels and activities of antioxidants were also measured. Methods: Blood samples were collected from 28 subjects with AD, 22 with MCI, 21 OCN, and 19 YCN. ACO2 act…

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Biomarkers of oxidative and nitrosative damage in Alzheimer's disease and mild cognitive impairment

Alzheimer's disease (AD) is the most common type of dementia in the elderly. Products of oxidative and nitrosative stress (OS and NS, respectively) accumulate with aging, which is the main risk factor for AD. This provides the basis for the involvement of OS and NS in AD pathogenesis. OS and NS occur in biological systems due to the dysregulation of the redox balance, caused by a deficiency of antioxidants and/or the overproduction of free radicals. Free radical attack against lipids, proteins, sugars and nucleic acids leads to the formation of bioproducts whose detection in fluids and tissues represents the currently available method for assessing oxidative/nitrosative damage. Post-mortem …

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Rare coding variants in PLCG2, ABI3, and TREM2 implicate microglial-mediated innate immunity in Alzheimer's disease

International audience; We identified rare coding variants associated with Alzheimer's disease in a three-stage case-control study of 85,133 subjects. In stage 1, we genotyped 34,174 samples using a whole-exome microarray. In stage 2, we tested associated variants (P < 1 × 10-4) in 35,962 independent samples using de novo genotyping and imputed genotypes. In stage 3, we used an additional 14,997 samples to test the most significant stage 2 associations (P < 5 × 10-8) using imputed genotypes. We observed three new genome-wide significant nonsynonymous variants associated with Alzheimer's disease: a protective variant in PLCG2 (rs72824905: p.Pro522Arg, P = 5.38 × 10-10, odds ratio (OR) = 0.68…

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Serum alkaline phosphatase is elevated and inversely correlated with cognitive functions in subjective cognitive decline: results from the ReGAl 2.0 project

Background: Alkaline phosphatase has been found on neuronal membranes and plasma alkaline phosphatase (ALP) activity increases during brain injury and cerebrovascular diseases, suggesting that its levels may reflect the neuronal loss. It is known that ALP is higher in subjects affected by Alzheimer’s dementia and inversely correlated with cognitive functions. No study has investigated the relationship between ALP and cognitive functions in old-age subject with pre-clinical cognitive impairment. Methods: This is a cross-sectional study with data gathered from the ReGAl 2.0 project (Rete Geriatrica Alzheimer-Geriatric Network on Alzheimer’s disease), a large Italian multicentric clinical-base…

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