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Oxidative imbalance in alzheimer’s disease

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Abstract

Oxidative stress is a striking feature of susceptible neurons in the Alzheimer’s disease brain. Importantly, because oxidative stress is an early event in Alzheimer’s disease, proximal to the development of hallmark pathologies, it likely plays an important role in the pathogenesis of the disease. Investigations into the cause of such oxidative stress show that interactions between abnormal mitochondria and disturbed metal metabolism are, at least in part, responsible for cytoplasmic oxidative damage observed in these susceptible neurons, which could ultimately lead to their demise. Oxidative stress not only temporally precedes the pathological lesions of the disease but could also contribute to their formation, which, in turn, could provide some protective mechanism to reduce oxidative stress and ensure that neurons do not rapidly succumb to oxidative insults. In this review, we present the evidence for oxidative stress in Alzheimer’s disease and its likely sources and consequence in relation to other pathological changes.

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. Institute of Pathology, Case Western Reserve University, Cleveland, OH

    Xiongwei Zhu, Hyoung-gon Lee, Gemma Casadesus, Kelly Drew, George Perry & Mark A. Smith

  2. Centro de Biologia Molecular (CSIC/UAM), Facultad de Ciencias, Universidad Autonoma de Madrid, Madrid, Spain

    Jesus Avila

  3. Institute of Arctic Biology and Department of Chemistry and Biochemistry, University of Alaska, Fairbanks, AK

    Kelly Drew

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  1. Xiongwei Zhu
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  2. Hyoung-gon Lee
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Correspondence to Xiongwei Zhu.

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Zhu, X., Lee, Hg., Casadesus, G. et al. Oxidative imbalance in alzheimer’s disease. Mol Neurobiol 31, 205–217 (2005). https://doi.org/10.1385/MN:31:1-3:205

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