Antibodies to human brain spectrin in Alzheimer's disease.
We investigated the existence of antibodies in sera of Alzheimer's disease patients which immunoreact with specific antigens from crude human brain extracts. We found that 49% of patients, per only 5% of control subjects, had increased levels of antibodies to a 240 kDa protein. On the basis of immunological criteria and internal amino acid sequencing, this antigen was identified as brain spectrin, a cytoskeletal protein which appears to be implicated in synaptic plasticity. Our data raises the possibility that anti-spectrin antibodies could be implicated in Alzheimer's disease pathogenesis.
Vázquez
J
J
Centro de Biología Molecular Severo Ochod Universidad Autónoma de Madrid, Cantoblanco, Spain. jvazquez@mvax.cbm.uam.es
Fernández-Shaw
C
C
Marina
A
A
Haas
C
C
Cacabelos
R
R
Valdivieso
F
F
D000328:Adult; D000367:Age Factors; D000368:Aged; D000544:Alzheimer Disease / Q000276:immunology*; D000595:Amino Acid Sequence; D000918:Antibody Specificity; D015153:Blotting, Western; D001923:Brain Chemistry / Q000276:immunology*; D002457:Cell Extracts / Q000276:immunology; D003599:Cytoskeleton / Q000276:immunology; D006801:Humans; D008875:Middle Aged; D008969:Molecular Sequence Data; D013049:Spectrin / Q000737:chemistry / Q000276:immunology*
D002457:Cell Extracts; D013049:Spectrin