Some unusual responses of astrocytes to ghost tangles in a long duration case of juvenile Alzheimer's disease: an electron microscopic study.
The ghost tangles (GTs) in usual Alzheimer's disease are separated into small bundles of abnormal straight filaments by many invading astrocytic processes lacking a basal lamina (BL). An electron microscopic study of GTs in the Ammon's horn of a case of juvenile Alzheimer's disease of 25 years' duration, however, revealed that only a small number of astrocytic processes had infiltrated the GTs, resulting in the GTs being composed of large bundles. Moreover, the majority of glial processes that had invaded or apposed GTs possessed an interrupted but still fairly well-developed BL with hemidesmosome-like profiles. Although pia-arachnoid cells are required for astrocytes to form a continuous BL, astrocytes can have a segmental BL on their surface facing even empty intercellular spaces within the brain parenchyma. The much greater frequency and better development of the GT-associated BL in our case indicate that the GT filaments somehow increased the ability of astrocytes to form a BL. On the other hand, the scarcity of GT-invading astrocytic processes implies that many of the glial processes that had once penetrated GTs had been withdrawn, with the result that GTs escaped expectable endocyto-phagocytosis by astrocytes.
Nakano
I
I
Department of Neuropathology, Tokyo Metropolitan Institute for Neuroscience, Japan.
Iwatsubo
T
T
Otsuka
N
N
Kamei
M
M
Matsumura
K
K
Mannen
T
T
D000544:Alzheimer Disease / Q000473:pathology*; D001253:Astrocytes / Q000648:ultrastructure*; D006624:Hippocampus / Q000473:pathology; D006801:Humans; D007150:Immunohistochemistry; D008297:Male; D008854:Microscopy, Electron; D008875:Middle Aged; D016874:Neurofibrillary Tangles / Q000648:ultrastructure*