Glial involvement in diffuse Lewy body disease

Seishi Terada, Hideki Ishizu, Osamu Yokota, Kuniaki Tsuchiya, Hanae Nakashima, Takeshi Ishihara, Daisuke Fujita, Kenji Uéda, Kenji Ikeda, Shigetoshi Kuroda

Research output: Contribution to journalArticlepeer-review

48 Citations (Scopus)

Abstract

Diffuse Lewy body disease (DLBD) is characterized by the presence of Lewy bodies (LB) in the neurons and neurites of cortical, subcortical, and brain stem structures. Recently, α-synuclein (αS) has been found to be a central constituent of LB. In DLBD, abnormal accumulation of αS has been reported in both neurons and glia, but studies on glial lesions in DLBD have been limited. We examined in detail the constituents and distribution of glial lesions in eight patients with DLBD and report the pathogenesis of the glial lesions. αS-positive neuronal cytoplasmic inclusions (NI), neuropil threads (NT), and coiled bodies (CB) showed similar immunostaining profiles. Without pretreatment, NI, NT, and CB were detected by all antibodies against αS. The immunostaining profile of star-like astrocytes (SLA) was quite different from those of NI, NT, and CB. A few SLA were stained by an antibody against the non-Aβ component portion of αS without pretreatment, but formic acid pretreatment dramatically enhanced SLA immunoreactivity. SLA and CB were found in all eight brains with DLBD. SLA were scarce in the brain stem, but there were hundreds of SLA per visual field at ×100 magnification in the temporal cortex of most cases, while CB were found diffusely in both the cerebral cortex and brain stem, similar to NI. This suggests that the pathogenesis of SLA is different from those of NI and CB.

Original languageEnglish
Pages (from-to)163-169
Number of pages7
JournalActa neuropathologica
Volume105
Issue number2
DOIs
Publication statusPublished - Feb 1 2003

Keywords

  • Coiled bodies
  • Diffuse Lewy body disease
  • Glia
  • Star-like astrocyte
  • α-Synuclein

ASJC Scopus subject areas

  • Pathology and Forensic Medicine
  • Clinical Neurology
  • Cellular and Molecular Neuroscience

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