Alzheimer's disease brain extract stimulates the survival of cerebral cortical neurons from neonatal rats.
Cell cultures of neonatal rat cerebral cortex in a serum-free medium were used to investigate a lack of neuronotrophic factors in Alzheimer's disease (AD) brain. A few neurons survived in the absence of brain extract. The addition of normal brain extract resulted in a 2.5-fold increase in neuronal survival. AD brain extract contained 4-fold neuronotrophic activity of normal brain extract. These findings are in contrary to the previous hypothesis of a lacking neuronotrophic factors in AD brain. These new results may change the concept of mechanism of neuronal death in AD.
Uchida
Y
Y
Department of Clinical Pathology, Tokyo Metropolitan Institute of Gerontology, Japan.
Ihara
Y
Y
Tomonaga
M
M
D000368:Aged; D000544:Alzheimer Disease / Q000378:metabolism*; D000818:Animals; D000831:Animals, Newborn; D001921:Brain / Q000378:metabolism*; D002470:Cell Survival; D002478:Cells, Cultured; D002540:Cerebral Cortex / Q000166:cytology*; D006801:Humans; D008869:Microtubule-Associated Proteins / Q000378:metabolism; D008875:Middle Aged; D009474:Neurons / Q000166:cytology* / Q000378:metabolism; D051381:Rats; D014020:Tissue Extracts / Q000494:pharmacology*
D008869:Microtubule-Associated Proteins; D014020:Tissue Extracts