Affiliations: [a] Neurochemistry Laboratory, National Parkinson Foundation Centre of Excellence Laboratories, Clinic and Policlinic for Psychiatry and Psychotherapy, University of Würzburg, Germany | [b] Netherlands Brain Bank, Amsterdam, The Netherlands | [c] Department of Neuropathology, Institute of Pathology, University of Würzburg, Germany | [d] University of Würzburg, Division of Neurobiology, Clinic for Child and Adolescent Psychiatry, Germany
Correspondence:
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Corresponding author: University of Würzburg, Clinic for Psychiatry and Psychotherapy, Neurochemistry Laboratory, Füchsleinstr. 15, 97080 Würzburg, Germany. Tel.: +49 931 20177300; Fax: +49 931 20177220; E-mail: Gruenblatt_E@klinik.uni-wuerzburg.de.
Note: [] Communicated by Christian Jacob
Abstract: Sporadic Alzheimer's (AD) and Parkinson's disease (PD) are late-onset neurodegenerative diseases with tremendous impact on lives of affected individuals. There is a great probability of developing concurrent Parkinsonism in AD and vice-versa than would be predicted by independent prevalence of each disease. We hypothesize that in sporadic AD as well as PD a combination of environmental effects and gene expression may affect specific brain areas leading to neurodegeneration. We profiled gene expression of AD compared to PD and age matched controls post-mortem in the hippocampus, the gyrus-frontalis-medius (Gfm) and the cerebellum using Gene-Chip microarray (Affymetrix) and quantitative-real-time-RT-PCR. Twelv genes altered in similar manner in AD and PD, while four genes showed differential expression profiles between AD and PD in different brain regions (cannabinoid-receptor-2, Histone-cluster-1-H3e, nicotinic-cholinergic-receptor-α6 and β-site-APP-cleaving enzyme-1). Knowledge of selective gene expression profile can lead to better understanding of disease pathology and development of specific diagnosis and effective therapy.
