Tau pathology in diffuse neurofibrillary tangles with calcification (DNTC): biochemical and immunohistochemical investigation.
Tanabe, Yasuyuki 1,4; Ishizu, Hideki 1; Ishiguro, Koichi 2; Itoh, Nobuo 3; Terada, Seishi 1; Haraguchi, Takashi 1; Kawai, Kensuke 1; Kuroda, Shigetoshi 1
[Miscellaneous Article] Neuroreport. 11(11):2473-2476, August 3, 2000.

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Diffuse neurofibrillary tangles with calcification (DNTC) represents a primary and sporadic presenile dementia that is characterized by temporal or fronto-temporal atrophy with diffuse neurofibrillary tangles (NFTs), neuropil threads and Fahr-type calcification without senile plaques. We examined the tau pathology in five autopsy cases of DNTC by immunoblotting and immunohistochemistry using phosphorylation-dependent and -independent anti-tau antibodies. The pattern of staining for different epitopes of [beta]-amyloid (A[beta]) was also investigated. NFTs were immunopositive with all the anti-tau antibodies used in this study. On the immunoblots, sarkosyl-insoluble tau appeared as three major bands of 60, 64 and 68 kDa, and as a minor band at 72 kDa. The majority of extracellular NFTs were weakly immunopositive only with the antibody recognizing the 40 carboxyl-terminal of A[beta] in DNTC. These results suggest that Alzheimer's disease-like tau pathology could exist independently of A[beta] deposits in DNTC.

(C) 2000 Lippincott Williams & Wilkins, Inc.