Inventors:
Frank A. Greco - Lexington MA
A. K. Solomon - Cambridge MA
Assignee:
President and Fellows of Harvard College - Cambridge MA
International Classification:
C12Q 100, C12N 500, C12N 508, G01N 3353
Abstract:
A method diagnosing Alzheimer's disease in a patient includes analyzing conformational changes in a band 3 protein of the patient yielding a time course of the conformational changes. One approach includes analyzing conformational changes in a band 3 protein by measuring band 3 Cl. sup. - /HCO. sub. 3. sup. - exchange over time. In this approach a double exponential function is solved for two rate constant estimates by fitting the double exponential function to the time course. At least one of the rate constant estimates is used to determine whether the patient has Alzheimer's disease. A second approach includes analyzing conformational changes in a band 3 protein by measuring the emission spectrum of a stilbene bound to band 3, which emission changes in response to band 3 conformational changes. In this approach, a single exponential function is solved for a parameter by fitting the single exponential function to the time course obtained. The parameter estimate is used to determine whether the patient has Alzheimer's disease.