Erythrocyte membrane changes of individuals with Down's Syndrome in various stages of Alzheimer-type dementia

Erythrocyte Aging Characteristics in Elderly Individuals With Beginning Dementia

“…1), and was in the same range as reported before for healthy, old-aged people [3.6 ± 0.9 fgm/1000 cells; (3,4)], This value is higher than that found for a relatively young (28 ± 5 years) control group (1.8 ± 0.8 fgm/1000 cells), confirming earlier results (4). In contrast with earlier findings in patients in an advanced stage of dementia of the Alzheimer type (3)> we did not find a significant increase in erythrocyte-bound IgG for the SDAT group.…”

“…Our results led us to the conclu sion that the erythrocyte aging process is disturbed in patients with SDAT. We reached an identical conclusion with regard to the erythrocyte aging process in donors with Down's syndrome (4). Recent findings support the hypothesis that Alzheimer-specific changes can be found at the level of the erythrocyte membrane (23), The changes in erythrocytes from individuals with Down's syndrome who showed no signs of dementia (4) indicated that aberrant erythrocyte aging characteristics might already be detect able before the neuropsychological symptoms of dementia.…”

“…Thus, die membrane characteristics of patients in advanced stages of AD/SDAT led us to the conclusion that the erythrocyte aging process might be disturbed in these patients (3). Measurements of the same parameters in individuals with Down's syndrome of various ages and in various stages of dementia resulted in the hypothesis that changes in the erythrocyte aging process might be detectable before the onset of dementia (4). However, in the present study we found no disease-specific differences in any of the erythrocyte aging characteristics in aged patients with begin ning dementia, compared with age-matched controls.…”

“…Band 3 polypeptides were analyzed by sodium dodecylsulfate-polyacrylamide gelelectrophoresis and immunoblotting using standard techniques described before (3). The reactivity of the antisera against human erythrocyte band 3 (MK1B3 against the whole protein and PMB3 against the mem brane domain) have been described before (3,4). Quantitative analysis of the extent of band 3 fragmentation was performed with a densitometer (GS-670) and analysis program (Molecular Ana lyst) from Bio-Rad Laboratories (Hercules, CA).…”

Brain and Erythrocyte Anion Transporter Protein, Band 3, as a Marker for Alzheimer’s Disease: Structural Changes Detected by Electron Microscopy, Phosphorylation, and Antibodies

“…Oxidation is a mecha nism for generating 'antigenic band 3' and SCA during storage [42,46,73]. Senescent cell antigen also appears to be involved in AD and Downs syndrome [74][75][76][77][78]. Autoantibod ies to SCA and band 3 which have been shown to be critical to RBC removal [65] do not rec ognize anti-gal or asialoglycophorin [64,79].…”