CARATTERIZZAZIONE DEI PIGMENTI DELL'INVECCHIAMENTO NEL CERVELLO UMANO:NEUROMELANINA E LIPOFUSCINE

Neuromelanin and lipofuscin are two pigment that both accumulate in central nervous system with aging. The presence and the morphology of these substances have been described more than one century ago but in the past the two pigments haven’t been unmistakably distinct. Today is important to discriminate the two pigments and understand their role in brain aging. Over the past years the capacity of neuromelanin and lipofuscine to interact with different cellular component and extra-cellular environment has been investigated. The role of these pigments in the pathogenesis of neurodegenerative disease is clear. In this study the co-presence of neuromelanin and lipofuscin in the same neuron of human brain has been verified and a unique description is given. Because of the main studies on human brain lipofuscins are in situ observations we propose a new method to isolate the lipofuscins from human brain tissue. Here we illustrate a new and pioneering method to isolate lipofuscins from human premotor cortex – gray matter. This method consents to obtain lipofuscins sample without sub-cellular organelles contaminants. For this reason the lipofuscins isolated with this methodology is suitable for proteomic and lipidomic analyses. The lipofuscine isolated from human premotor cortex have been analyzed with -omics technologies. The preliminary data show the presence of lysosomal degradative pathways and mithocondria. This study shows that some neurons in central nervous system are able to accumulate both neuromelanin and lipofuscin. The two storage systems seem to result from two different metabolic processes.