There is no author summary for this article yet. Authors can add summaries to their articles on ScienceOpen to make them more accessible to a non-specialist audience.
Abstract
<p class="first" id="d4701390e99">Lipid rafts are highly dynamic membrane domains
featured by distinctive biochemical
composition and physicochemical properties compared with the surrounding plasma membrane.
These microstructures are associated not only with cellular signaling and communication
in normal nerve cells but also with pathological processing of amyloid precursor protein
in Alzheimer's disease. Using lipid rafts isolated from human frontal cortex in nondemented
subjects aging 24 to 85 years, we demonstrate here that lipid structure of lipid rafts
undergo significant alterations of specific lipid classes and phospholipid-bound fatty
acids as brain cortex correlating with aging. Main changes affect levels of plasmalogens,
polyunsaturated fatty acids (especially docosahexaenoic acid and arachidonic acid),
total polar lipids (mainly phosphatidylinositol, sphingomyelin, sulfatides, and cerebrosides),
and total neutral lipids (particularly cholesterol and sterol esters). Besides, relevant
relationships between main fatty acids and/or lipid classes were altered in an age-related
manner. This "lipid raft aging" exhibits clear gender differences and appear to be
more pronounced in women than in men, especially in older (postmenopausal) women.
The outcomes led us to conclude that human cortical lipid rafts are modified by aging
in a gender-dependent fashion. Given the central role of bilayer lipid matrix in lipid
rafts functionality and neuronal signaling, we hypothesize that these findings might
underlie the higher prevalence of cognitive decline evolving toward Alzheimer's disease
in postmenopausal women.
</p>