Fig. 1

Presenilin 2 (PS2) and presenilin 1 (PS1) expression in human platelets from Met239Valmutated subject, sporadic Alzheimer’s disease (AD) patients and from control subjects. Representative ethidium bromide (EtBr)-stained gels from reverse transcription-polymerase chain reaction (RT-PCR) analysis of (B) PS1 and (A) PS2 expression performed on mRNA extracted from platelet lysates using oligo (dt) for reverse transcription and degenerated primers, encoding the region between aa 83- and 278 of PS1 and the homologous region for PS2, for the first PCR amplification. The resulting PCR products were further amplified in a restricted region to separately amplify PS1 and PS2. DNA fragments of 449 bp and 376 bp were obtained for PS2 and PS1, respectively. The expression of PS1 and PS2 was normalized for glyceraldehyde-3-phosphate dehydrogenase (GAPDH) expression used as internal control for each sample (see Fig. 1C). The expression of either PS1 or PS2 was similar in all experimental groups. The presence of the Met239Val mutation is reported for each family member. (D) representative Western blots analysis performed with monoclonal antibody anti-presenilin1 on platelet homogenate obtained from that represented in Fig. 2C. ADsp = sporadic AD patients; C = control subjects.