Author/Editor		Mohorko, Nina; Bresjanac, Mara
Title		Curcumin, a curry spice ingredient, detects and differentiates between pathological tau inclusions in human histological brain sections
Translated title		Kurkumin, sestavina začimbe curry, označuje vključke patološke beljakovine tau v histoloških rezinah človeških možganov in razločuje med njimi
Type		članek
Source		Zdrav Vestn
Vol. and No.		Letnik 78, št. 12
Publication year		2009
Volume		str. 735-43
Language		slo
Abstract		Background: Curcumin, a natural fluorochrome and a potent anti-inl ammatory antioxidant used as a spice and as an ayurvedic remedy for centuries, has been shown to label pathologic aggregates of beta amyloid, alphasynuclein and scrapie prion protein, and to reduce their aggregation. Curcumin binding to tau, a protein that pathologically aggregates in a wide family of neurodegenerative diseases, tauopathies, has not been examined, yet. Our study was aimed at assessing curcumin labelling of characteristic pathological deposits of hyperphosphorylated tau protein in brain sections from representative cases of three major classes of tauopathies: Alzheimer's disease (AD; class 1), progressive supranuclear palsy (PSP; class 2) and Pick's disease (PiD; class 3).Methods: The structures of interest were first identified in HE-stained sections and photographed. Subsequently, the visualization of these structures with curcumin and AT8 immunol uorescence was assessed by sequential labelling and computer-assisted photography of the same loci. Results were expressed as percentage of structures labelled. Results: Curcumin detected i brillar tau in AD (95 %) and PSP (90 %), but not in PiD. When comparing curcumin labelling to AT8 immunol uorescence in AD and PSP, curcumin labelled i brillar AT8-positive, but not non-fibrillar AT8-immunol uorescent structures. Curcumin also labelled extracellular fibrillar tangles remaining after neuronal death in AD and PSP, which were not visualized by AT8 immunol uorescence.Conclusions: Curcumin fluorescence was shown to dif erentiate between pathological tau deposits in two ways. Firstly, it preferentially detected tau deposits with i brillar morphology. Secondly, curcumin also differentiated between representative cases of main tauopathy classes: it did not reveal fibrillar Pick bodies, while clearly labelling neurofibrillar tangles found in AD and PSP.
Descriptors		SPICES AMYLOID BETA-PROTEIN TAU PROTEINS NEUROFIBRILLARY TANGLES ALZHEIMER'S DISEASE SUPRANUCLEAR PALSY, PROGRESSIVE DEMENTIA FLUORESCENT ANTIBODY TECHNIQUE ANTIBODIES, MONOCLONAL