The mitochondrial secret(ase) of Alzheimer's disease.

Alzheimer's disease (AD) is a neurodegenerative disorder characterized clinically by progressive decline in memory and cognition and pathologically by extracellular amyloid-beta (Abeta) deposits and intraneuronal aggregates of hyperphosphorylated tau. Since its proposal in 1992, the amyloid cascade hypothesis implicates Abeta overproduction as a causative event in disease pathogenesis, and this thinking has predominated the field's understanding of AD pathogenesis and the development of potential therapeutics (i.e.

Automated solid-phase extraction method for measuring urinary polycyclic aromatic hydrocarbon metabolites in human biomonitoring using isotope-dilution gas chromatography high-resolution mass spectrometry.

In order to perform comprehensive epidemiological studies where multiple metabolites of several PAHs are measured and compared in low-dose urine samples, fast and robust methods are needed to measure many analytes in the same sample. We have modified a previous method used for measuring polycyclic aromatic hydrocarbon (PAH) metabolites by automating the solid-phase extraction (SPE) and including an additional eight metabolites. We also added seven new carbon-13 labeled standards, which improves the use of isotope-dilution calibration.