Immunoreactivity for Bcl-2 and C-Jun/AP1 in hippocampal corpora amylacea after ischaemia in humans.
Corpora amylacea (CAm) are regarded as a hallmark of brain ageing, but little is known about their role in normal and pathological circumstances. CAm contain, in addition to glucose polymers, ageing-, stress- and proinflammatory proteins. In view of their almost universal occurrence and their cumulation with time, formation of CAm may represent a basic mechanism for the management of metabolic degradation products. In this context, we studied samples from post-mortem cases with repetitive brain hypoxic episodes in the past history. We investigated, by immunohistochemistry, the presence of Bcl-2, c-jun and bax in CAm. CAm showed immunoreactivity for the mitochondrial membrane associated protein Bcl-2, and for the major component of activator protein 1 transcriptional factor c-Jun. We found higher numbers of CAm in the hippocampus and the dentate gyrus in cases with repetitive cerebral hypoxia than in controls. We conclude that: (1) the presence of C-Jun and Bcl-2 within the glucose polymer mass of CAm may be related to mitochondrial damage and/or a transient overload of proteolytic systems during cellular injury; and (2) repetitive cellular stress during life may cause the age-related increase of CAm in elderly subjects.
Botez
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Institute of Anatomy III, Clinic of the JWG-University, Frankfurt, Germany.
Rami
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A
D000328:Adult; D000368:Aged; D000369:Aged, 80 and over; D000906:Antibodies; D017209:Apoptosis; D002545:Brain Ischemia / Q000473:pathology*; D005260:Female; D006624:Hippocampus / Q000737:chemistry / Q000473:pathology*; D006801:Humans; D007150:Immunohistochemistry; D008297:Male; D008875:Middle Aged; D019253:Proto-Oncogene Proteins c-bcl-2 / Q000032:analysis* / Q000276:immunology; D016755:Proto-Oncogene Proteins c-jun / Q000032:analysis* / Q000276:immunology; D018808:Transcription Factor AP-1 / Q000032:analysis* / Q000276:immunology
D000906:Antibodies; D019253:Proto-Oncogene Proteins c-bcl-2; D016755:Proto-Oncogene Proteins c-jun; D018808:Transcription Factor AP-1