Metallothionein-I-II and GFAP positivity in the brains from frontotemporal dementia patients.
Frontotemporal dementia regards a group of presenile progressive neurodegenerative form of dementias which includes Pick's disease, corticobasal degeneration, frontotemporal dementia with motor neuron disease, frontal lobe degeneration, dementia-parkinsonism-amyotrophy complex, familial non-specific dementia mapping to chromosome 3, non-Alzheimer degenerative dementia lacking distinctive histological features as well as a number other infrequent syndromes with dementia and focal neurological signs. The aim of this study was to investigate the regional distribution of metallothionein-I-II, an ubiquitary group of buffering proteins, in cases of frontotemporal dementia. The aim of the present study was to study the metallothionein-I-II expression in relationship to the expression in astrocytes of glial fibrillary acidic protein (GFAP) as we have already done in previous studies of Alzheimer's and Binswanger's diseases [31,32]. Our findings indicate that metallothionein-I-II expression in the most affected areas is likely to be regionally distinct and layer-dependent, in that it is highest in the deep layers of the frontotemporal cortex and the allocortex (hippocampus) while insignificantly immunopositive in the occipital cortex. In addition, the potential use of metallothionein-I-II as a new pharmacological approach to contrast some deleterious aspects of this disease has been also discussed.
Zatta
P
P
CNR-Institute for Biomedical Technologies, Metalloproteins Unit, Department of Biology, University of Padua, Italy. zatta@mail.bio.unipd.it
Zambenedetti
P
P
Musicco
M
M
Adorni
F
F
D000328:Adult; D000368:Aged; D000369:Aged, 80 and over; D001253:Astrocytes / Q000473:pathology; D003704:Dementia / Q000473:pathology*; D005260:Female; D005625:Frontal Lobe / Q000473:pathology; D005904:Glial Fibrillary Acidic Protein / Q000032:analysis*; D006624:Hippocampus / Q000473:pathology; D006801:Humans; D008297:Male; D008668:Metallothionein / Q000032:analysis*; D008875:Middle Aged; D009778:Occipital Lobe / Q000473:pathology; D020774:Pick Disease of the Brain / Q000473:pathology*; D013702:Temporal Lobe / Q000473:pathology
D005904:Glial Fibrillary Acidic Protein; D008668:Metallothionein