Flow Cytometric Evaluation of Crude Synaptosome Preparation As a Way to Study Synaptic Alteration in Neurodegenerative Diseases

Overview

Journal Neuromethods

Publisher Springer

Specialty Neurology

Date 2020 Mar 7

PMID 32139977

Citations 2

Authors

Nadia O Postupna

Caitlin S Latimer

C Dirk Keene

Kathleen S Montine

Thomas J Montine

Martin Darvas

Affiliations

Soon will be listed here.

Abstract

Neurodegenerative diseases, the most common among them Alzheimer's disease (AD) and Lewy body disease (LBD), are a group of progressive incurable illnesses. In both AD and LBD, abundant evidence points to the synapse as the critical and early focus of pathological changes. Here we present a method for the isolation and flow cytometric analysis of synaptosomes prepared from postmortem human brain tissue, which we also applied to animal models, including mice and nonhuman primates. The use of flow cytometry for analysis allows for relatively fast and efficient examination of thousands of synaptosome particles in a matter of minutes, and also makes it possible to use crude, rather than purified, synaptosomal preparation, thus conserving tissue resources. We have applied this method to study synaptic alteration in several brain regions in human research participants and animal models.

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