Dramatic increase of alpha-hydroxyaldehydes derived from plasmalogens in the aged human brain.

Plasmalogens-substantial compounds of brain tissue--suffer degradation either by hydrolysis under production of aldehydes or by oxidation with lipid peroxylradicals by generation of plasmalogen epoxides. The latter react by addition of pentafluorobenzylhydroxylamine HCl (PFBHA HCL) under hydrolysis to alpha-hydroxyaldehydes which are immediately transformed to pentafluorobenzyloximes (PFBO). Likewise, free aldehydes are transformed to PFBO-derivatives. PFBO-derivatives of free aldehydes and PFBO-derivatives of alpha-hydroxyaldehydes were extracted and after trimethylsilylation quantified by GC/FID and by GC/MSD. The remaining aqueous phase, containing plasmalogens besides other lipids, was hydrolyzed by treatment with acid. The hydrolysis products of plasmalogens, long chain aldehydes, react with PFBHA HCl to produce PFBO-derivatives. These were also quantified by GC/FID. This method allows the quantification of plasmalogens, free aldehydes and plasmalogenepoxides in human brain samples to study changes in the relation of these compounds with increasing age. While the ratio of plasmalogens in respect to derived aldehydes seems to remain constant during life time, the quotient of plasmalogenepoxides to plasmalogens increases with age, indicating that lipid peroxidation processes are involved in the damage of plasmalogens in the brain of aged individuals, starting at an age of about 70 years.