A serum protein involved in aging?

Aging of the brain is characterized, in part, by the appearance of protein anomalies. The proteins deposited within the nervous system structures are hardly soluble. This physiological phenomenon turns out to be pathological, quantitatively at least, and perhaps even qualitatively, in dementia of the Alzheimer's type (DAT). One might wonder whether the brain protein anomalies are related to a general process and, thus, could generate anomalies of the serum proteins. Therefore, we examined, with two-dimensional electrophoresis (2DE), 120 serum samples collected from different neurological patients and 24 serum samples from a control group, and we reached the following conclusion: a protein spot, normally not found and named 10M, corresponding to a molecular weight of 30 kDa with an isoelectric point of +/- 8, is seen in 31% of the patients affected with a neurological disease and in 90% of patients affected with DAT. The frequency of the appearance of this spot, seen after 2DE, increases with age. We wonder whether this protein is playing a role in the formation of the neuropathological lesions observed in DAT.