Relationship between Alzheimer's disease clinical stage and Gq/11 in subcellular fractions of frontal cortex.

Alzheimer's disease (AD) is associated with impaired coupling of cell surface muscarinic cholinergic receptors to G proteins of the Gq/11 class in brain. This alteration may contribute to progression of cognitive impairment during the course of the disease. We hypothesized that increasing severity of cognitive impairment would be related to decreased levels of Gq/11 detected in key subcellular fractions made from postmortem brain tissue. In this study, we used Western blotting to determine the quantity of Gq/11alpha in P2, synaptic plasma membrane, cytoplasm, microsomal membrane, and lipid raft fractions prepared from superior frontal cortex gray matter of 25 patients with clinical AD confirmed by post-mortem examination. Multiple linear regression analysis that adjusted for age, sex, and education showed a linear relationship between frontal cortex synaptic plasma membrane Gq/11alpha levels and severity of cognitive impairment determined by Mini Mental State score measured proximate to death.