Neuritin is down-regulated in human AD brains.

<p>(A) Neuritin mRNA levels in the cortex (medial frontal gyrus) and hippocampus of age-matched control subjects (69, 79 and 80 years old) and AD patients (67, 75, 81 and 87 years old) were evaluated by qRT-PCR. Neuritin mRNA levels in the cortex and hippocampus of the AD brains were significantly lower than those of the age-matched control subjects. The relative ratio of neuritin to GAPDH mRNA in the AD patients was 15.10±6.28% compared to control subjects in cortical regions and 69.16±5.95% compared to the control subjects in the hippocampus (***<i>p</i><0.001 and *<i>p</i><0.05, respectively, Student's <i>t</i>-test). Data are presented as the mean ± SEM. (B) Human brain tissues embedded in paraffin were cut into 4 µm-thick coronal sections and were used to perform immunohistochemistry with an anti-neuritin antibody (red) and DAPI (blue) staining. The fluorescent images were collected from the dentate gyrus, the CA1 and CA3 regions of the hippocampus on an LSM 510 confocal microscope (Zeiss). The black and white images merged with DAPI staining are also shown. The results are representative of 3 human AD brains and 3 age-matched control brains. Scale bars represent 100 µm.