Platelet phosphorylated TDP-43: an exploratory study for a peripheral surrogate biomarker development for Alzheimer's disease.

Aim: Alzheimer's disease (AD) and other forms of dementia create a noncurable disease population in world's societies. To develop a blood-based biomarker is important so that the remedial or disease-altering therapeutic intervention for AD patients would be available at the early stage.

Materials & Methods: TDP-43 levels were analyzed in postmortem brain tissue and platelets of AD and control subjects.

Zyxin phosphorylation at serine 142 modulates the zyxin head-tail interaction to alter cell-cell adhesion.

Zyxin is an actin regulatory protein that is concentrated at sites of actin-membrane association, particularly cell junctions. Zyxin participates in actin dynamics by binding VASP, an interaction that occurs via proline-rich N-terminal ActA repeats. An intramolecular association of the N-terminal LIM domains at or near the ActA repeats can prevent VASP and other binding partners from binding full-length zyxin.