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Dick Swaab and Ahmad Salehi - Q&A
This is the end of the presentation.
A. Salehi, M.D., Ph.D. has agreed to answer questions concerning this Seminar.
Current Questions and Answers
Question from Kamran Rostami:
Dear Ahmad,
I enjoyed the on-line Seminar about Alzheimer's disease. In your thesis
book I saw something related to Down syndrome. But in this site I did
not find anything about it. Coeliac disease is also associated sometimes
with Down syndrome. Therefor I was interested to know more about
relationship between Alzheimer and Down syndrom as well. If you have new
information concerning these association, I would be pleased to hear it
from you.
Reply from Ahmad Salehi:
Thanks very much for your interest and question. There is a very clear
and strong relationship between Down's syndrome and the occurrence of
Alzheimer pathology. Patients with trisomy 21 almost invariably develop
a neuropathology indistinguishable from Alzheimer pathology by age of
40-45. The similarities between Down's syndrome and Alzheimer's disease
include: the distribution of plaques and tangles, neurotransmitter
levels and many other parameters. It is assumed that the development of
Alzheimer pathology in Down syndrome cases is caused by the fact that
these patients have three copies of amyloid precursor protein gene
located on chromosome 21. In support of this, it has been shown that the
expression of APP is increased 2-5 times in Down's syndrome cases
compared with controls.
Question from Paul Lucassen, Leiden University:
Nice website! Looks promising. I wonder; does this mean that the
Ipsen paper been published yet
Reply by Dr. Ahmad Salehi (23 March, 1997):
We have reviewed the pre-print of the IPSEN paper which it means
that it will be out very soon.
Question from Paul Lucassen, Leiden University:
It may be a nice idea to start a similar discussion on the debate on
apoptosis in AD. What do you think
Reply by Dr. Ahmad Salehi (23 March, 1997):
This a very good idea to discuss about the possible role of apoptosis in
Alzheimer's disease and I am sure that right now there are many
discussion groups regarding this topic. I think the best way is to join
the journal club by
Dr. Wolozin on the Web which
discusses this point.
Comment by Paul Lucassen, Leiden University:
Concerning the Golgi and CO as markers, other markers as nucleolus size
and cell size fit the same picture. Furthermore, also ER specific
antibodies are available with Prof. Gonatas' lab that may be useful.
Reply by Dr. Ahmad Salehi (23 March, 1997):
Right now there are a couple of people at NIBR working on the role
of CO in AD and we are trying to compare the data obtained from Golgi
apparatus with those data. We have got very exciting data with the
Golgi apparatus in Alzheimer's disease which support the fact that
these markers are very much related. Regarding the other markers e.g.
ER, firstly, we have to think about the possibility to develop a new
image analysis system for measurement of ER size. Secondly, I am not
sure that the measurement of the ER size will provide us with more
information than what we get with the GA.
Q: With regard to the content and the size of the Golgi in tangle-containing neurons and in
fact when you look at Golgi you primarily look at proteins which are targeted to membranes, to
lysosomes for secretion, but in fact the protein synthesis ability may be indicated by the size
of the rough endoplasmic reticulum--the ribosome content.
A: Of course there are many other measures of activity and one can also think of
cytochrome oxidase as a measure of activity. You are right it does not cover all the metabolic
pathways, if you measure the size of the Golgi. However we have found in animal experiments a
very good relationship between the size of the Golgi apparatus and other measures of activity
like the size of the cell body, size of the nucleolus, the hormonal output of the neuron. The
same holds true for vasopressin levels."
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