Mirza Ambreen, King Andrew, Troakes Claire, Exley Christopher
The Birchall Centre, Lennard-Jones Laboratories, Keele University, Staffordshire, UK.
Department of Clinical Neuropathology, King's College Hospital, London, UK.
J Alzheimers Dis. 2016 Oct 18;54(4):1333-1338. doi: 10.3233/JAD-160648.
Aluminum in human brain tissue is implicated in the etiologies of neurodegenerative diseases including Alzheimer's disease. While methods for the accurate and precise measurement of aluminum in human brain tissue are widely acknowledged, the same cannot be said for the visualization of aluminum. Herein we have used transversely-heated graphite furnace atomic absorption spectrometry to measure aluminum in the brain of a donor with Alzheimer's disease, and we have developed and validated fluorescence microscopy and the fluor lumogallion to show the presence of aluminum in the same tissue. Aluminum is observed as characteristic orange fluorescence that is neither reproduced by other metals nor explained by autofluorescence. This new and relatively simple method to visualize aluminum in human brain tissue should enable more rigorous testing of the aluminum hypothesis of Alzheimer's disease (and other neurological conditions) in the future.
人脑组织中的铝与包括阿尔茨海默病在内的神经退行性疾病的病因有关。虽然准确精确测量人脑组织中铝的方法已得到广泛认可，但铝的可视化却并非如此。在此，我们使用横向加热石墨炉原子吸收光谱法测量了一名阿尔茨海默病捐赠者大脑中的铝，并开发并验证了荧光显微镜和荧光镓试剂，以显示同一组织中铝的存在。铝呈现为特征性橙色荧光，既不是其他金属产生的，也不能用自发荧光来解释。这种在人脑组织中可视化铝的新的相对简单的方法，有望在未来对阿尔茨海默病（及其他神经疾病）的铝假说进行更严格的检验。
