A monoclonal antibody to non-phosphorylated neurofilament protein marks the vulnerable cortical neurons in Alzheimer's disease.

Various cytoskeletal proteins have been implicated in the formation of neurofibrillary tangles in Alzheimer's disease. A monoclonal antibody to non-phosphorylated neurofilament protein labels a distinct subset of pyramidal cells in the normal human cortex which have a distribution very similar to that of neurofibrillary tangles in brains from patients with Alzheimer's disease. In addition, regions and layers that normally contain a high density of such cells, in Alzheimer's disease, have large numbers of neurofibrillary tangles and few remaining immunoreactive cells.