Gene expression profiles of metabolic enzyme transcripts in Alzheimer's disease

The successfully functioning brain is a heavy user of metabolic energy. Alzheimer's disease, in which cognitive faculties decline, may be due, at least in part, to metabolic insufficiency. Using microarray analysis and quantitative RT-PCR, the expression of mRNA transcripts involved in glucose metabolism was investigated in Alzheimer's diseased post-mortem human hippocampal samples. of the 51 members of the glycolytic, tricarboxylic acid cycle, oxidative phosphorylation, and associated pathways investigated by qPCR, 15 were confirmed to be statistically significantly (p < 0.05) down-regulated in Alzheimer's disease. This finding suggests that reductions in the levels of transcripts encoded by genes that participate in energy metabolism may be involved in Alzheimer's disease. (c) 2006 Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved.