Thomas Philip, Hecker Jane, Faunt Jeffrey, Fenech Michael
CSIRO Division of Human Nutrition, Adelaide, SA 5000, Australia.
Mutagenesis. 2007 Nov;22(6):371-9. doi: 10.1093/mutage/gem029. Epub 2007 Aug 20.
Alzheimer's disease (AD) is a progressive degenerative disorder of the brain and is the commonest form of dementia. A buccal cytome assay was used to measure ratios of buccal cell populations and micronuclei in clinically diagnosed Alzheimer's patients compared to age and gender-matched controls. Frequencies of basal cells (P < 0.0001), condensed chromatin cells (P < 0.0001) and karyorrhectic cells (P < 0.0001) were found to be significantly lower in Alzheimer's patients. These changes may reflect alterations in the cellular kinetics or structural profile of the buccal mucosa, and may be useful as potential biomarkers in identifying individuals with a high risk of developing AD. The odds ratio of being diagnosed with AD for those individuals with a basal cell plus karyorrhectic cell frequency <41 per 1000 cells is 140, with a specificity of 97% and sensitivity of 82%. These promising results need to be replicated in larger studies and in cohorts of other neurodegenerative disorders to determine specificity of changes to Alzheimer's patients.
阿尔茨海默病（AD）是一种进行性脑部退行性疾病，也是最常见的痴呆形式。采用口腔细胞检测法测量临床诊断的阿尔茨海默病患者与年龄和性别匹配的对照组的口腔细胞群体比例和微核情况。结果发现，阿尔茨海默病患者的基底细胞频率（P < 0.0001）、染色质浓缩细胞频率（P < 0.0001）和核溶解细胞频率（P < 0.0001）显著较低。这些变化可能反映了口腔黏膜细胞动力学或结构特征的改变，并且可能作为识别有高风险患阿尔茨海默病个体的潜在生物标志物。对于那些基底细胞加核溶解细胞频率<每1000个细胞41个的个体，被诊断为阿尔茨海默病的优势比为140，特异性为97%，敏感性为82%。这些有前景的结果需要在更大规模的研究以及其他神经退行性疾病队列中进行重复验证，以确定这些变化对阿尔茨海默病患者的特异性。
