Fraser Thomas, Tayler Hannah, Love Seth
Dementia Research Group, Institute of Clinical Neurosciences, Clinical Science at North Bristol, University of Bristol, Frenchay Hospital, Frenchay, Bristol BS16 1LE, UK.
J Neurosci Methods. 2008 Mar 30;169(1):135-40. doi: 10.1016/j.jneumeth.2007.12.001. Epub 2007 Dec 8.
Deficiency of docosahexaenoic acid (DHA) and other omega-3 (omega3) fatty acids may constitute an alterable risk factor for Alzheimer's disease (AD). Mechanisms of potential involvement of DHA in the disease process have been postulated primarily from studies in vitro and in mouse models of AD. Information on the fatty acid profile of the brain in AD itself is limited and in some respects contradictory. Interpretation of the findings is complicated by the diversity of methods used in previous studies and a lack of information as to the effect of post-mortem delay on the results. Here we report the development of a simple and highly reproducible method that enables relatively high-throughput measurement of the fatty acid composition in samples of brain tissue and using this method we have demonstrated that there is no significant change in fatty acid composition under conditions designed to model post-mortem delay of up to 3 days at 4 degrees C (or even at room temperature). The development of this method and the observation that delay of up to 3 days has no effect on fatty acid content will facilitate further studies of fatty acid composition on large cohorts of post-mortem brains.
二十二碳六烯酸（DHA）和其他ω-3脂肪酸的缺乏可能是阿尔茨海默病（AD）一个可改变的风险因素。DHA潜在参与疾病进程的机制主要是基于体外研究和AD小鼠模型推测得出的。关于AD患者大脑脂肪酸谱的信息有限，并且在某些方面存在矛盾。先前研究中使用方法的多样性以及缺乏关于尸检延迟对结果影响的信息，使得研究结果的解读变得复杂。在此，我们报告了一种简单且高度可重复的方法的开发，该方法能够相对高通量地测量脑组织样本中的脂肪酸组成，并且使用此方法我们证明，在4摄氏度（甚至室温）下模拟长达3天的尸检延迟的条件下，脂肪酸组成没有显著变化。该方法的开发以及长达3天的延迟对脂肪酸含量无影响这一观察结果，将有助于对大量尸检大脑队列的脂肪酸组成进行进一步研究。
