Published in:
01-11-2008 | Original Paper
Plaque-type deposition of prion protein in the damaged white matter of sporadic Creutzfeldt-Jakob disease MM1 patients
Authors:
Atsushi Kobayashi, Kunimasa Arima, Masafumi Ogawa, Miho Murata, Takahiro Fukuda, Tetsuyuki Kitamoto
Published in:
Acta Neuropathologica
|
Issue 5/2008
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Abstract
Plaque-type deposition of prion protein (PrP) in the brain has been extremely rare in sporadic Creutzfeldt-Jakob disease patients with methionine homozygosity at polymorphic codon 129 of the PrP gene and type 1 abnormal isoform of PrP (sCJD-MM1). Here we report three sCJD-MM1 patients who showed prominent PrP-positive amyloid plaques in the cerebral and cerebellar white matter. All three patients showed clinical courses of long duration (2 years ≤), particularly at the end-stage. The white matter of these patients was severely damaged because of the prolonged disease duration. Furthermore, Alzheimer’s amyloid precursor protein, which accumulates within the axonal swellings under pathological conditions, co-accumulated with the PrP-amyloid plaques. These findings suggest that the axonal damage reflecting the prolonged disease duration causes the deposition of PrP-amyloid plaques in the white matter. The present study shows that PrP-amyloid plaques can occur in the white matter of sCJD-MM1 cases.