Reconstruction of the Three-dimensional Structure of
Senile Plaques in Alzheimer Disease

YE Wei, ZHOU Jiang-Ning¹, HU Xiang-You¹, LIU Jiang-Wu², HE Jun-Hui, TANG Xiao-Wei*

( College of Science of ZheJiang University, Hangzhou 310027, China;
¹ Geriatrics Institutes of First Affiliated Medical Hospital of Anhui Medical School, Hefei 230022, China;
² College of Biomedical Engineering and Instrument Science of ZheJiang University, Hangzhou 310027, China )

Abstract Senile plaques are one of the major neuropathological features of Alzheimer’s disease (AD). Aggregation of Amyloid beta-protein (Ab) in senile plaques is related to the pathogenesis of AD, so it is very important for the studies on the prevention of Ab deposition and on trying to disaggregate the senile plaques, aimed at treatment and prevention of the AD. In this report, the three-dimension structures of senile plaques are reconstructed by AVS software by using immunohistochemical method and MATLAB software. The diffuse plaques and classical plaques in hippocampus all have complicated porous structures; no core structures were present in diffuse plaques, and the deposition density of Ab in this kind of plaque diminishes from interior region to the microenvironment. The deposition density of Ab was highest in the central region of classical plaques, while was lowest in the region around central, and was intermediated in the extreme region of this kind of plaques. The method of reconstruction of three-dimension structure of senile plaques helps studying on dynamics of senile plaques, and it is also important for the studies on the pathogenesis of AD.

Key words Alzheimer disease; senile plaques; three-dimension reconstruction; dynamics

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