NEUROFIBRILLARY TANGLES IN SENILE DEMENTIA OF THE ALZHEIMER TYPE SHARE AN ANTIGENIC DETERMINANT WITH INTERMEDIATE FILAMENTS OF THE VIMENTIN CLASS

Abstract

A monoclonal antibody produced by a hybridoma between a plasmacytoma cell and a spleen cell from a mouse immunized with human brain microtubule fraction was demonstrated to stain neurofibrillary tangles of senile dementia of the Alzheimer type (SDAT). The antibody recognized at least 50% of the tangles in neuronal perikarya isolated from SDAT brains and stained a filamentous network in HeLa [human cervical carcinoma] cells, fibroblasts and astrocytes. It did not stain skin epithelial cells or neurons isolated from normal brains but reacted with Z bands in skeletal muscle. The monoclonal antibody stained coils in colchicine or colcemid-treated cultured cells in a pattern characteristic of 10-nm intermediatesized filaments. Immunoblotting of Triton-insoluble cytoskeletal proteins of cultured cells electrophoresed in SDS [sodium dodecyl sulfate] polyacrylamide gels showed that the antigenic determinant is present in proteins of MW 58,000 [daltons] which comigrates with vimentin. Thus, the neurofibrillary tangles in SDAT apparently share an antigenic determinant with vimentin.