Dynamics of plaque formation in Alzheimer's disease.
Plaques that form in the brains of Alzheimer patients are made of deposits of the amyloid-beta peptide. We analyze the time evolution of amyloid-beta deposition in immunostained brain slices from transgenic mice. We find that amyloid-beta deposits appear in clusters whose characteristic size increases from 14 microm in 8-month-old mice to 22 microm in 12-month-old mice. We show that the clustering has implications for the biological growth of amyloid-beta by presenting a growth model that accounts for the experimentally observed structure of individual deposits and predicts the formation of clusters of deposits and their time evolution.
Urbanc
B
B
Center for Polymer Studies and Department of Physics, Boston University, Boston, Massachusetts 02215 USA.
Cruz
L
L
Buldyrev
S V
SV
Havlin
S
S
Irizarry
M C
MC
Stanley
H E
HE
Hyman
B T
BT
D000544:Alzheimer Disease / Q000209:etiology* / Q000378:metabolism* / Q000473:pathology; D016229:Amyloid beta-Peptides / Q000737:chemistry / Q000235:genetics / Q000378:metabolism*; D000818:Animals; D055592:Biophysical Phenomena; D001703:Biophysics; D004195:Disease Models, Animal; D006801:Humans; D007150:Immunohistochemistry; D007700:Kinetics; D046911:Macromolecular Substances; D051379:Mice; D008822:Mice, Transgenic; D010316:Particle Size; D058225:Plaque, Amyloid / Q000737:chemistry / Q000378:metabolism* / Q000473:pathology*; D013997:Time Factors
D016229:Amyloid beta-Peptides; D046911:Macromolecular Substances