title: Prion Disease Induces Alzheimer Disease-Like Neuropathologic Changes.
abstract: We examined the brains of 266 patients with prion disease (PrionD) and found that 46 patients (17%) had Alzheimer disease (AD)-like changes. To explore potential mechanistic links between PrionD and AD, we exposed human brain aggregates (BrnAggs) to a brain homogenate from a patient with sporadic Creutzfeldt-Jakob disease and found that neurons in human BrnAggs produced many β-amyloid (Aβ; Aβ42) inclusions, whereas uninfected control-exposed human BrnAggs did not. Western blot analysis of 20 pooled Creutzfeldt-Jakob disease-infected BrnAggs verified Aβ42 levels higher than those in controls. We next examined the CA1 region of the hippocampus from 14 patients with PrionD and found that 5 patients had low levels of scrapie-associated prion protein (PrP), many Aβ42 intraneuronal inclusions, low apolipoprotein E-4 (APOE-4), and no significant nerve cell loss. Seven patients had high levels of PrP, low Aβ42, high APOE-4, and 40% nerve cell loss, suggesting that APOE-4 and PrP together cause neuron loss in PrionD. There were also increased levels of hyperphosphorylated tau protein (Hτ) and Hτ-positive neuropil threads and neuron bodies in both PrionD and AD groups. The brains of 6 age-matched control patients without dementia did not contain Aβ42 deposits; however, there were rare Hτ-positive threads in 5 controls, and 2 controls had few Hτ-positive nerve cell bodies. We conclude that PrionD may trigger biochemical changes similar to those triggered by AD and suggest that PrionD is a disease involving PrP, Aβ42, APOE-4, and abnormal tau.
authors.affiliation: From the Department of Pathology (Neuropathology) (TT, KB, HS, AG, AO, BD, SJD), Department of Neurology (MG), Memory and Aging Center (MG), and Institute for Neurodegenerative Diseases (SJD), University of California San Francisco, San Francisco, California.
authors.forename: Thomas
authors.initials: T
authors.lastname: Tousseyn
authors.forename: Krystyna
authors.initials: K
authors.lastname: Bajsarowicz
authors.forename: Henry
authors.initials: H
authors.lastname: Sánchez
authors.forename: Ania
authors.initials: A
authors.lastname: Gheyara
authors.forename: Abby
authors.initials: A
authors.lastname: Oehler
authors.forename: Michael
authors.initials: M
authors.lastname: Geschwind
authors.forename: Bernadette
authors.initials: B
authors.lastname: DeArmond
authors.forename: Stephen J
authors.initials: SJ
authors.lastname: DeArmond
mesh_terms: D000368:Aged; D000544:Alzheimer Disease / Q000235:genetics / Q000473:pathology*; D000818:Animals; D001921:Brain / Q000473:pathology*; D005260:Female; D006801:Humans; D008297:Male; D051379:Mice; D008822:Mice, Transgenic; D008875:Middle Aged; D017096:Prion Diseases / Q000235:genetics / Q000473:pathology*