PROGRAMME SCIENTIFIQUE - Oxygen Club of California

P63
Plasma proteins are specifically oxidized in Alzheimer’s disease
Stuart Bennett, B.Sc and Sarah Aldred, Ph.D
School of Sport and Exercise Sciences, University of Birmingham, Edgbaston, Birmingham. B15 2TT,
UK.
Oxidative stress has been widely implicated in the progression of Alzheimer’s disease (AD) with several
studies reporting increased markers of oxidative stress in brain and peripheral tissue (Markesbery, 1997;
Rinaldi et al., 2003). To our knowledge there are a limited number of proteomic studies which report the
specific oxidation of plasma proteins in AD (Choi et al., 2002; Yu et al., 2003), albeit several studies do
report specific oxidation to proteins in brain tissue (Butterfield et al., 2006). Proteomic studies identifying
specifically oxidized proteins in plasma, in addition to other markers of oxidative stress have the potential
for use as a biomarker to enable an earlier and more directed treatment of this disease. In this study total
antioxidant capacity (TAC) was measured using the ferric reducing ability of plasma assay (FRAP) in
103 plasma samples (47 AD and 56 age matched controls). TAC was reduced in AD compared to control
subjects (1004.838 ± 205.197µM and 952.191 ± 210.928µM respectively; repeated measures ANOVA, p
> 0.05) although this was not statistically significant. In addition, oxidation to specific plasma proteins
was examined using a subset of samples (n = 50; 25 AD, 25 age matched controls) by 2D gel
electrophoresis with immunological detection. One protein was found to be significantly oxidized in AD
(p