title: Erythrocytic calpain-calpastatin system in Alzheimer's disease.
abstract: Calpains, calcium activated neutral proteases (CANP), and calpastatin (CAST), their specific inhibitor, are involved in the proteolysis of amyloid precursor protein (APP), which is thought to be abnormal in Alzheimer's disease (AD). We studied the CANP/CAST system in erythrocytes of 14 clinically probable AD patients, 11 young and 14 old controls. CANP and CAST activities in the control subjects significantly correlated with increasing age; old controls showed a significant increase in CANP and CAST activities compared to young controls. Values of CANP and CAST activities in AD patients were similar to those of young controls. The physiological gage-related increase in proteolysis seems to be lost in AD patients, and this could play a role in the pathogenesis of the disease. However, due to the overlap of results between patients and controls, we could not reliably differentiate the healthy from the disease state on the basis of erythrocytic CANP/CAST activity.
authors: Department of Sciences and Biomedical Technologies, University of Milano, Italy.
authors: L
authors: L
authors: Soldati
authors: M
authors: M
authors: Alberoni
authors: G
authors: G
authors: Bianchi
authors: N
authors: N
authors: Canal
authors: M
authors: M
authors: Franceschi
mesh_terms: D000368:Aged; D000544:Alzheimer Disease / Q000097:blood*; D000704:Analysis of Variance; D015415:Biomarkers; D002135:Calcium-Binding Proteins / Q000097:blood*; D002154:Calpain / Q000097:blood*; D015853:Cysteine Proteinase Inhibitors / Q000097:blood*; D004912:Erythrocytes / Q000201:enzymology*; D005260:Female; D006801:Humans; D008297:Male; D008875:Middle Aged
chemical_list: D015415:Biomarkers; D002135:Calcium-Binding Proteins; D015853:Cysteine Proteinase Inhibitors; C033668:calpastatin; D002154:Calpain