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PMID: 2456021 Published · ppublish English Journal Article Research Support, U.S. Gov't, P.H.S.

Alzheimer's disease. A double-labeling immunohistochemical study of senile plaques.

The American journal of pathology ·Vol. 132 ·No. 1 ·1988-07-00 ·Pages 86-101

Dickson DW, Farlo J, Davies P, Crystal H, Fuld P, Yen SH

Abstract

The senile plaque is one of the histopathologic changes that characterizes Alzheimer's disease and the aging brain. The histopathology of senile plaques was studied using double-labeling immunohistochemistry and lectin histochemistry with thioflavin S fluorescent microscopy in 9 cases of Alzheimer's disease, 2 nondemented elderly individuals, and 3 individuals with non-Alzheimer primary degenerative dementias. Every plaque that was visualized with thioflavin also had amyloid, but not all thioflavin-positive plaques contained neurites that could be recognized with specific monoclonal antibodies to paired helical filament, tau, or neurofilament epitopes. Some neurofilament-positive neurites were not visualized with thioflavin, but almost all tau-positive neurites were colabeled with thioflavin. Microglia were associated with most plaques. Most plaques were also surrounded by fibrous astrocytes. These results suggest that amyloid may be the common feature that defines senile plaques, but that other elements may be more specific for Alzheimer's disease, because extensive neuritic degeneration was seen only in Alzheimer brains and not in either nondemented elderly individuals with senile plaques or in non-Alzheimer dementia cases.

MeSH Terms
Alzheimer Disease/diagnosis,metabolism,pathology Amyloid/metabolism Antibodies, Monoclonal Astrocytes/metabolism,pathology Brain/metabolism,pathology Epitopes Glial Fibrillary Acidic Protein/metabolism Humans Immunohistochemistry/methods Microtubule-Associated Proteins/immunology,metabolism Neurofibrils/immunology,metabolism Neuroglia/pathology Phosphoric Monoester Hydrolases/pharmacology tau Proteins
Chemicals
Amyloid Antibodies, Monoclonal Epitopes Glial Fibrillary Acidic Protein Microtubule-Associated Proteins tau Proteins Phosphoric Monoester Hydrolases
Authors & Affiliations
6 authors, click to expand affiliations / ORCID
Dickson D W
Department of Pathology (Neuropathology), Albert Einstein College of Medicine, Bronx, NY 10461.
Farlo J
Davies P
Crystal H
Fuld P
Yen S H
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Article Info
Journal
The American journal of pathology
Abbr.
Am J Pathol
ISSN
0002-9440
Published
1988-07-00
Pages
86-101
Language
English
Region
United States
NLM ID
0370502
PMCID
PMC1880629
Subset
IM
Grants
NIA NIH HHS · AG06803 · United States
NIA NIH HHS · AG1136 · United States
NIA NIH HHS · AG4145 · United States
External Links
PubMed source PMC Full Text View journal details
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