Selective accumulation of aluminum and iron in the neurofibrillary tangles of Alzheimer's disease: A laser microprobe (LAMMA) study
Abstract
We report the results of an examination of the elemental content of neurofibrillary tangle–bearing and neurofibrillary tangle–free neurons identified within the hippocampus of 10 subjects with Alzheimer's disease and 4 neuropathologically intact age‐matched control subjects. The study employed laser microprobe mass analysis (LAMMA), a technique that provides extremely sensitive multielement detection in plastic‐embedded, semithin‐sectioned tissues. Evidence for the selective accumulation of aluminum within the neurofibrillary tangle–bearing neurons was obtained in all 10 subjects with Alzheimer's disease. The site of aluminum deposition within these cells was the neurofibrillary tangle itself, and not the “nuclear region”, as we previously reported. Iron accumulation was also detected within neurofibrillary tangles. Evaluation for the accumulation of other elements within the tangle‐bearing neurons failed to reveal any other metallic element as being consistently present. In addition, probe sites directed to neurons identified in snapfrozen cryostat sections from 2 subjects with Alzheimer's disease revealed similar spectra with prominent aluminum‐related peaks, confirming that our findings are not related to exogenous contamination through fixation, embedding, or other procedures prior to analysis. This study further confirms the association of aluminum and neurofibrillary tangle formation in Alzheimer's disease.
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Iron (and in some cases copper) is strongly implicated in a variety of neurodegenerative diseases.
“Iron (and in some cases copper) is also strongly implicated in a variety of neurodegenerative diseases [944,981,945,958,962,950,917,278,43,285,972,141,975-1087].”
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- Authors
- Good, P. F., Perl, D. P., Bierer, L. M., & Schmeidler, J.
- Affiliations
- Icahn School of Medicine at Mount Sinai (US)
- Corresponding author
- Perl, Daniel P.
- Venue
- Annals of Neurology
- Publisher
- Wiley
- Published
- 1992-03
- Volume
- 31
- Issue
- 3
- Pages
- 286-292
- ISSN
- 0364-5134 (ISSN-L)
- 1531-8249
- OpenAlex
- W1986318523
- Cited by
- 476
- References
- 26
- Citations by year
- 2026: 4 · 2025: 5 · 2024: 5 · 2023: 7 · 2022: 12 · 2021: 8 · 2020: 12 · 2019: 9 · 2018: 8 · 2017: 12 · 2016: 6 · 2015: 10 · 2014: 9 · 2013: 13 · 2012: 16
- FWCI
- 14.07
- Type
- journal article
- Language
- en
- Open access
- closed
- Locations
- Annals of Neurology (publishedVersion)
- PubMed (publishedVersion)
- Funders
- National Institutes of Health (5r01ag006833-03)
- National Institute on Aging (P50AG005138, AG 5138, AG-6833)
- National Institute of Environmental Health Sciences (ES-928)
- Topics
- Health Sciences › Medicine › Physiology › Alzheimer's disease research and treatments
- Life Sciences › Agricultural and Biological Sciences › Plant Science › Aluminum toxicity and tolerance in plants and animals
- Health Sciences › Nursing › Nutrition and Dietetics › Trace Elements in Health
- Keywords
- Alzheimer's disease, neurofibrillary tangles, aluminum accumulation, iron accumulation, hippocampus, laser microprobe mass analysis, neurodegeneration
- MeSH terms
- Aluminum, Alzheimer Disease, Cell Nucleus, Cytoplasm, Humans, Iron, Lasers, Mass Spectrometry, Neurofibrillary Tangles
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