High Expression of Nicotinamide N-Methyltransferase in Patients with Sporadic Alzheimer's Disease

We have previously shown that the expression of nicotinamide N-methyltransferase (NNMT) is significantly increased in the brains of patients who have died of Parkinson's disease (PD). In this study, we have compared the expression of NNMT in post-mortem medial temporal lobe, hippocampus and cerebellum of 10 Alzheimer's disease (AD) and 9 non-disease control subjects using a combination of quantitative Western blotting, immunohistochemistry and dual-label confocal microscopy coupled with quantitative analysis of colocalisation. NNMT was detected as a single protein of 29 kDa in both AD and non-disease control brains, which was significantly increased in AD medial temporal lobe compared to non-disease controls (7.5-fold, P < 0.026). There was no significant difference in expression in the cerebellum (P = 0.91). NNMT expression in AD medial temporal lobe and hippocampus was present in cholinergic neurones with no glial localisation. Cell-type expression was identical in both non-disease control and AD tissues. These results are the first to show, in a proof-of-concept study using a small patient cohort, that NNMT protein expression is increased in the AD brain and is present in neurones which degenerate in AD. These results suggest that the elevation of NNMT may be a common feature of many neurodegenerative diseases. Confirmation of this overexpression using a larger AD patient cohort will drive the future development of NNMT-targetting therapeutics which may slow or stop the disease pathogenesis, in contrast to current therapies which solely address AD symptoms.

Early era in a broken-symmetry theory of gravity

We discuss in this paper the early era of Robertson–Walker, Kantowski–Sachs, and Bianchi type 1 cosmologies in the light of a broken-symmetry theory of gravity proposed by Chandra. The conclusions for all three cosmologies are briefly presented for comparison. Some results of Chandra's calculation on Robertson–Walker cosmology are corrected.

Charged solutions in higher dimensions

In this paper we derive spherically symmetric interior isotropic and anisotropic solutions in higher dimensions in Einstein–Maxwell theory. Some particular solutions are obtained from the general isotropic solution. The anisotropic solution is Schwarzschild-like. It reduces to the Krori–Borgohain–Das solution if the charge is zero and to the Krori–Paul solution if the number of dimensions is four.

Charged Demianski metric

A solution of Einstein–Maxwell equations is presented. This solution is the charged version of the Demianski metric.