Elsevier

Neuroscience Letters

Volume 18, Issue 1, 15 May 1980, Pages 105-110
Neuroscience Letters

Coenzyme a-acetylating enzymes in Alzheimer's disease: Possible cholinergic ‘compartment’ of pyruvate dehydrogenase

https://doi.org/10.1016/0304-3940(80)90220-7Get rights and content

Abstract

In the mammalian central cholinergic system the precise mechanism for the production of acetyl-CoA used in acetylcholine synthesis has not yet been identified. As a possible means of investigating this problem the relationship between the activities of several enzymes which can synthesize acetyl-CoA and the cholinergic defect of Alzheimer's disease has been examined. Small, but significant reductions in the activities of pyruvate dehydrogenase, ATP-citrate lyase and acetoacetyl-CoA thiolase were found in post mortem brain tissue from cases of Alzheimer's disease, and the decrease in pyruvate dehydrogenase appeared to be related to the extent of the cholinergic defect (as indicated by loss of choline acetyltransferase). Furthermore, the regional distribution of choline acetyltransferase was similar to that of pyruvate dehydrogenase but not to the distribution of the other enzymes investigated in normal human brain tissue. These observations tend to support a recent suggestion that there may be a particular form of pyruvate dehydrogenase associated with cholinergic neurones.

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