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.
Center for Polymer Studies and Department of Physics, Boston University, Boston, Massachusetts 02215 USA.
B
B
Urbanc
L
L
Cruz
S V
SV
Buldyrev
S
S
Havlin
M C
MC
Irizarry
H E
HE
Stanley
B T
BT
Hyman
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