title: Reduced expression of the inhibitory synapse scaffolding protein gephyrin in Alzheimer's disease.
abstract: Excitotoxicity may contribute to neuronal and synaptic loss in Alzheimer's disease (AD). Aberrant levels of gephyrin, a post-synaptic receptor-stabilizing protein, could affect the inhibitory modulation of excitatory impulses. We assayed gephyrin protein in two brain areas susceptible to neuronal loss in AD, and in a spared area, in autopsy tissue from normal subjects (n=15) and AD patients (n=5). Quantification was by in-gel immunodetection against known concentrations of a recombinant truncated gephyrin standard. Gephyrin abundance was significantly reduced (P<0.01) in AD. Area-wise analysis showed that gephyrin levels were reduced in both spared and susceptible regions, indicating a global phenomenon. When samples were categorized on an index of pathological severity, gephyrin levels decreased with increasing severity until a moderate index was reached, and then increased, suggesting that higher gephyrin levels might compensate for excitotoxic damage in late stages of the disease. AD males showed a more pronounced reduction in gephyrin levels than AD females cf same-sex controls. A major splice variant of gephyrin was detected in all cases and in all three brain areas. This is the first study of gephyrin expression in AD.
authors.affiliation: School of Molecular and Microbial Sciences, University of Queensland, Brisbane, Australia.
authors.forename: Smriti
authors.initials: S
authors.lastname: Agarwal
authors.forename: Rudi K
authors.initials: RK
authors.lastname: Tannenberg
authors.forename: Peter R
authors.initials: PR
authors.lastname: Dodd
mesh_terms: D000368:Aged; D000369:Aged, 80 and over; D000544:Alzheimer Disease / Q000235:genetics* / Q000378:metabolism* / Q000473:pathology; D001921:Brain / Q000378:metabolism / Q000473:pathology; D002352:Carrier Proteins / Q000235:genetics* / Q000378:metabolism*; D005260:Female; D006801:Humans; D008297:Male; D045170:Matrix Attachment Regions / Q000235:genetics*; D008565:Membrane Proteins / Q000235:genetics* / Q000378:metabolism*; D008875:Middle Aged; D009433:Neural Inhibition / Q000235:genetics*; D013569:Synapses / Q000378:metabolism*
chemical_list: D002352:Carrier Proteins; D008565:Membrane Proteins; C073441:gephyrin