Increased synthesis and accumulation of heat shock 70 proteins in Alzheimer's disease

Abstract

Postmorten cortical tissues from Alzheimer's disease cases were found to contain significantly higher levels of the cat heat shock proteins hsp 72 and hsp 73 than control cortical tissues. This elevation was associated with the disease pathology in that it was not observed in Alzheimer's disease serebella and was not correlated with perimorten characteristics such as age or cause of death of the patient or postmortem interval of the brain tissue. Examination of polysome translation products on two dimensional gels and by immunoprecipitation indicated that the synthese of hsp 72/73 were increased in Alzheimer's disease tissues. In addition, immunoprecipitation of newly snynthesized hsp 72 showed that numerous other nascent polypeptides were co-precipitated, which indicates an irreversible cotranslational association with the hsp 72 . These results indicate that induction of specific heat shock protein is associated with Alzheimer's disease and that contranslational processes are affected by in this induction.