Cytogenetic alterations in peripheral cells of Alzheimer s disease patients

Alzheimer’s disease (AD) is the most frequent progressive neurodegenerative disorder in elderly associated with irreversible cognitive impairment and dementia. The vast majority of AD patients are sporadic (SAD) in which the disease develops after age of 65. Despite of century of research, we lack understanding of the SAD etiology and pathogenesis. Several hypotheses try to explain the main causes of brain degeneration in SAD, one of them assuming that genomic instability and the reentry of certain neurons into the incomplete cell cycle may be the pathogenic basis of the disease. Although the brain is the most affected organ in AD, numerous studies showed structural and functional alterations in peripheral tissues, suggesting that AD is a generalized systemic disorder. Diverse changes in peripheral cells from AD patients are described in literature including cell cycle aberration and chromosome instability, alterations in cell viability, proliferation and apoptosis, oxidative metabolism, amyloid precursor protein and amyloid β protein metabolism, and other cellular processes. The aim of this paper was to summarize and review the results of our investigations and the growing literature data concerning the multiple chromosomal alterations in peripheral cells of AD patients and to consider their possible role in the disease pathogenesis as well as the importance of such investigations. [Projekat Ministarstva nauke Republike Srbije, br. 173034]