Induction of Alzheimer-like beta-amyloid immunoreactivity in the brains of rabbits with dietary cholesterol.

beta-amyloid and ALZ-50 immunocytochemical reactivity were determined in the brains of rabbits fed either a control or 2% cholesterol diet. Control rabbits demonstrated no accumulation of intracellular immunolabeled beta-amyloid within 3 min after death. In animals fed the experimental diet for 4, 6, and 8 weeks (postmortem interval < 3 min), there was an increasingly mild-to-moderate-to-severe accumulation of intracellular immunolabeled beta-amyloid. Whether or not beta-amyloid is causally linked to processes leading to dementia, it is related in some way to the prime cause of human death; heart disease. Hypercholesterolemic rabbits may provide an animal model to study altered beta-APP metabolism leading to Alzheimer-like beta-amyloid accumulation xe03and extracellular deposition in brain.