TY - JOUR
T1 - Corpora amylacea are associated with tau burden and cognitive status in Alzheimer’s disease
AU - Wander, Connor M.
AU - Tsujimoto, Tamy Harumy Moraes
AU - Ervin, John F.
AU - Wang, Chanung
AU - Maranto, Spencer M.
AU - Bhat, Vanya
AU - Dallmeier, Julian D.
AU - Wang, Shih Hsiu Jerry
AU - Lin, Feng Chang
AU - Scott, William K.
AU - Holtzman, David M.
AU - Cohen, Todd J.
N1 - Funding Information:
Support for this work was provided by National Institutes of Health (NIH) grants R01AG061188 (T.J.C) and R01AG066871 (T.J.C.), Cure Alzheimer’s Fund (D.M.H.), the JPB Foundation (D.M.H.), NIH grants RF1NS090934 (D.M.H.), RF1AG047644 (D.M.H.), and the National Center for Advancing Translational Sciences (NCATS) grant UL1TR001111 (T.J.C.). The Duke/UNC ADRC is supported by NIH grant P30AG072958. Microscopy was performed at the UNC Neuroscience Microscopy Core Facility supported by grant P30NS045892 and the NIH-NICHD Intellectual and Developmental Disabilities Research Center Support grant U54HD079124.
Publisher Copyright:
© 2022, The Author(s).
PY - 2022/12
Y1 - 2022/12
N2 - Corpora amylacea (CA) and their murine analogs, periodic acid Schiff (PAS) granules, are age-related, carbohydrate-rich structures that serve as waste repositories for aggregated proteins, damaged cellular organelles, and other cellular debris. The structure, morphology, and suspected functions of CA in the brain imply disease relevance. Despite this, the link between CA and age-related neurodegenerative diseases, particularly Alzheimer’s disease (AD), remains poorly defined. We performed a neuropathological analysis of mouse PAS granules and human CA and correlated these findings with AD progression. Increased PAS granule density was observed in symptomatic tau transgenic mice and APOE knock-in mice. Using a cohort of postmortem AD brain samples, we examined CA in cognitively normal and dementia patients across Braak stages with varying APOE status. We identified a Braak-stage dependent bimodal distribution of CA in the dentate gyrus, with CA accumulating and peaking by Braak stages II–III, then steadily declining with increasing tau burden. Refined analysis revealed an association of CA levels with both cognition and APOE status. Finally, tau was detected in whole CA present in human patient cerebrospinal fluid, highlighting CA-tau as a plausible prodromal AD biomarker. Our study connects hallmarks of the aging brain with the emergence of AD pathology and suggests that CA may act as a compensatory factor that becomes depleted with advancing tau burden.
AB - Corpora amylacea (CA) and their murine analogs, periodic acid Schiff (PAS) granules, are age-related, carbohydrate-rich structures that serve as waste repositories for aggregated proteins, damaged cellular organelles, and other cellular debris. The structure, morphology, and suspected functions of CA in the brain imply disease relevance. Despite this, the link between CA and age-related neurodegenerative diseases, particularly Alzheimer’s disease (AD), remains poorly defined. We performed a neuropathological analysis of mouse PAS granules and human CA and correlated these findings with AD progression. Increased PAS granule density was observed in symptomatic tau transgenic mice and APOE knock-in mice. Using a cohort of postmortem AD brain samples, we examined CA in cognitively normal and dementia patients across Braak stages with varying APOE status. We identified a Braak-stage dependent bimodal distribution of CA in the dentate gyrus, with CA accumulating and peaking by Braak stages II–III, then steadily declining with increasing tau burden. Refined analysis revealed an association of CA levels with both cognition and APOE status. Finally, tau was detected in whole CA present in human patient cerebrospinal fluid, highlighting CA-tau as a plausible prodromal AD biomarker. Our study connects hallmarks of the aging brain with the emergence of AD pathology and suggests that CA may act as a compensatory factor that becomes depleted with advancing tau burden.
UR - http://www.scopus.com/inward/record.url?scp=85135549368&partnerID=8YFLogxK
U2 - 10.1186/s40478-022-01409-5
DO - 10.1186/s40478-022-01409-5
M3 - Article
C2 - 35941704
AN - SCOPUS:85135549368
VL - 10
JO - Acta neuropathologica communications
JF - Acta neuropathologica communications
SN - 2051-5960
IS - 1
M1 - 110
ER -