Sex Difference in CHI3L1 Expression Levels in Human Brain Aging and in Alzheimer's Disease.

Sex Difference in CHI3L1 Expression Levels in Human Brain Aging and in Alzheimer's Disease. Brain Res. 2019 Jun 24;:146305 Authors: Sanfilippo C, Castrogiovanni P, Imbesi R, Kazakowa M, Musumeci G, Blennow K, Zetterberg H, Di Rosa M Abstract Several genetic sexual dimorphisms have been identified in animal and human brains, which may form a neural basis for sex-specific predisposition to neurological diseases. In the last years, clinical studies have observed that Alzheimer's disease (AD) disproportionately affects women compared with men. Chitinase-3-Like 1 protein (CHI3L1) has been frequently investigated in body fluids as a surrogate marker of neuroinflammation in AD and other neurological disorders. Nevertheless, the sex-related differences in CHI3L1 expression in the human brain has not yet been investigated. Here we aimed to evaluate the specificity of increase of CHI3L1 in five brain regions (cerebellum, dorsolateral prefrontal cortex, prefrontal cortex, hippocampus, and visual cortex) of male and female controls during normal aging, as well as in AD patients. We selected ten microarray datasets from NCBI, representing normal aging (n=1290) and AD (n=992), and stratified the brain specimens according to age, gender and brain region. The expression levels of CHI3L1 were correlated with age and gender. Female control brain specimens showed higher CHI3L1 expression than male brains. The expression differences between men and wome...
Source: Brain Research - Category: Neurology Authors: Tags: Brain Res Source Type: research