A Quantitative Analysis of Proteomic Changes in Hippocampal Tissue of Alzheimer's Patients vs. Aged-Controls

Abstract

The purpose of this study was to identify changes in protein expression that occur in the hippocampus in Alzheimer's disease (AD). To achieve this, we performed a quantitative analysis comparing the protein levels from hippocampi of subjects with AD to aged-matched normal subjects. First, synaptoneurosome samples were prepared from hippocampal slices from deceased human patients. Then the samples were sent to the Mass Spectrometry Core, where they were analyzed to identify proteomic changes in expression of the sample tissue. The software Scaffold was used to validate MS/MS based peptide and protein identifications. Using the quantitative analysis of Scaffold, enrichment analysis was run using genes identified by Scaffold. From here identified ontologies and pathways were fu rther explored for areas of interest related to AD. The results showed that 5 gene families- DPYSL, TUBB, ATP2B, PD El and DNM- might have a significant impact on the molecular mechanisms behind AD and need further investigation.