Granulovacuolar degeneration refers to the occurrence within

neuron A neuron, neurone, or nerve cell is an electrically excitable cell that communicates with other cells via specialized connections called synapses. The neuron is the main component of nervous tissue in all animals except sponges and placozoa. N ...

s of abnormal, fluid-filled bubbles (

vacuole A vacuole () is a membrane-bound organelle which is present in plant and fungal cells and some protist, animal, and bacterial cells. Vacuoles are essentially enclosed compartments which are filled with water containing inorganic and organic mo ...

s) containing a dense

protein Proteins are large biomolecules and macromolecules that comprise one or more long chains of amino acid residues. Proteins perform a vast array of functions within organisms, including catalysing metabolic reactions, DNA replication, respo ...

aceous granule. Granulovacuoles occur most commonly in pyramidal neurons of the hippocampus. They are present in small numbers in non-demented elderly people, but increase in frequency in

Alzheimer's disease Alzheimer's disease (AD) is a neurodegeneration, neurodegenerative disease that usually starts slowly and progressively worsens. It is the cause of 60–70% of cases of dementia. The most common early symptom is difficulty in short-term me ...

and other

tauopathies Tauopathy belongs to a class of neurodegenerative diseases involving the aggregation of tau protein into neurofibrillary or gliofibrillary tangles in the human brain. Tangles are formed by hyperphosphorylation of the microtubule protein known a ...

. In Alzheimer's disease, granulovacuoles proliferate stage-wise in different brain areas, and their prevalence is correlated with the degree of tauopathy, Abeta plaque pathology, and

cerebral amyloid angiopathy Cerebral amyloid angiopathy (CAA) is a form of angiopathy in which amyloid beta peptide deposits in the walls of small to medium blood vessels of the central nervous system and meninges. The term ''congophilic'' is sometimes used because the pre ...

Immunohistochemical Immunohistochemistry (IHC) is the most common application of immunostaining. It involves the process of selectively identifying antigens (proteins) in cells of a tissue section by exploiting the principle of antibodies binding specifically to ant ...

analyses have found that the inner granule includes several proteins, including

tubulin Tubulin in molecular biology can refer either to the tubulin protein superfamily of globular proteins, or one of the member proteins of that superfamily. α- and β-tubulins polymerize into microtubules, a major component of the eukaryotic cytoske ...

tau protein The tau proteins (abbreviated from tubulin associated unit) are a group of six highly soluble protein isoforms produced by alternative splicing from the gene ''MAPT'' (microtubule-associated protein tau). They have roles primarily in maintaining ...

TDP-43 TAR DNA-binding protein 43 (TDP-43, transactive response DNA binding protein 43 kDa) is a protein that in humans is encoded by the ''TARDBP'' gene. Structure TDP-43 is 414 amino acid residues long. It consists of 4 domains: an N-terminal d ...

and others. Although granulovacuoles and their functional significance are still poorly understood, they have been compared to

autophagic Autophagy (or autophagocytosis; from the Ancient Greek , , meaning "self-devouring" and , , meaning "hollow") is the natural, conserved degradation of the cell that removes unnecessary or dysfunctional components through a lysosome-dependent re ...

vacuoles

References

Ageing Neuropathology Alzheimer's disease {{Pathology-stub}