Amino acids, glutathione, and glutathione transferase activity in the brains of patients with Alzheimer's disease.

We measured the contents of amino acids and related amino compounds in autopsied brain from 22 patients with Alzheimer's disease (AD) and in cortical biopsy specimens from 2 other patients. The diagnosis of AD was established neuropathologically in all 24 patients by the presence of both neurofibrillary tangles and neuritic plaques in neocortex. The mean contents of gamma-aminobutyric acid (GABA), and of the GABA dipeptide homocarnosine, were significantly reduced in frontal and occipital cortices and in hippocampus of the autopsied brains of AD patients compared to control patients without neurological disease. However, GABA contents were normal in frontal cortex in biopsy samples from 2 patients. Phosphoethanolamine contents were significantly reduced at autopsy in frontal and occipital cortex, and in the substantia innominata. We found no evidence of a deficiency of glutamate, aspartate, or taurine in AD brain, as has been claimed. Glutathione contents and glutathione transferase activities were normal in frontal cortex and substantia innominata. The mechanism of neuronal death in patients with AD is unlikely to involve either insufficient synthesis of glutathione or failure to conjugate free radicals with glutathione.