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. 1988 Jul;85(13):4898–4901. doi: 10.1073/pnas.85.13.4898

Transmission studies from blood of Alzheimer disease patients and healthy relatives.

E E Manuelidis 1, J M de Figueiredo 1, J H Kim 1, W W Fritch 1, L Manuelidis 1
PMCID: PMC280544  PMID: 3387446

Abstract

The etiology of Alzheimer disease (AD) is unknown. To investigate the transmissibility of AD, the buffy coat of the blood from 11 relatives of AD patients, including 2 with suspicious or early signs of AD, was inoculated intracerebrally into hamsters. In these pilot experiments, 5 individuals produced histologically documented spongiform encephalopathy on primary passage in recipient hamsters. Material from 3 of these positives was serially transmitted in a second passage. The histological alterations observed in the brains of positive hamsters were similar to those seen in experimental Creutzfeldt-Jakob disease (CJD). These transmission results raise the intriguing possibility that CJD-like agents may be involved in at least some forms of AD.

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Selected References

These references are in PubMed. This may not be the complete list of references from this article.

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