Monoclonal antibodies to purified cortical Lewy bodies recognize the mid‐size neurofilament subunit

JE Galvin, VMY Lee, M Baba… - Annals of Neurology …, 1997 - Wiley Online Library
JE Galvin, VMY Lee, M Baba, DMA Mann, DW Dickson, H Yamaguchi, ML Schmidt…
Annals of Neurology: Official Journal of the American Neurological …, 1997Wiley Online Library
Lewy bodies (LBs) are filamentous intraneuronal inclusions that are hallmark lesions of
Parkinson's disease, and LBs have been shown, by immunohistochemistry, to contain
cytoskeletal as well as other cellular proteins. Similar LBs also occur in the cortical neurons
of a subset of patients with Alzheimer's disease (AD), and cortical LBs are the predominant
or sole lesions in the brains of patients with an AD‐like dementia known as diffuse Lewy‐
body disease (DLBD). To gain insight into the biochemical composition of LBs, we …
Abstract
Lewy bodies (LBs) are filamentous intraneuronal inclusions that are hallmark lesions of Parkinson's disease, and LBs have been shown, by immunohistochemistry, to contain cytoskeletal as well as other cellular proteins. Similar LBs also occur in the cortical neurons of a subset of patients with Alzheimer's disease (AD), and cortical LBs are the predominant or sole lesions in the brains of patients with an AD‐like dementia known as diffuse Lewy‐body disease (DLBD). To gain insight into the biochemical composition of LBs, we generated monoclonal antibodies (mAbs) to LBs purified from the brains of patients with DLBD. Here, we describe three of these new mAbs (LB48, LB202, and LB204) that stained LBs by immunohistochemistry and recognized the medium molecular mass neurofilament (NF) protein in western blots. These results support the hypothesis that NF subunits are integral components of LBs. Continued efforts to clarify the composition of LBs are likely to lead to novel strategies for the antemortem diagnosis of LB disorders as well as to insight into the role LBs play in the degeneration of affected neurons in these disorders.
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