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Recently, the neurotoxic amyloid ␤-peptide was shown to up-regulate polyamine metabolism by increasing ornithine decarboxylase (ODC) activity and polyamine uptake by initiating free radical damage in Alzheimer's disease (AD).1 Because of these findings, polyamines have been considered to play an important role in response to neurodegenerative conditions, including AD.2 According to recent reports, hair fibers may be used to obtain physiologic information.3,4 Hair specimens, unlike biological fluids, are easy to collect and require less hygienic handling methods. In this study, we investigated whether hair polyamine concentrations are altered in AD patients.We obtained hair fibers from 34 female patients treated at Baekje Geriatric Hospital from September, 1999, to March, 2000. This group of patients included 1) 16 individuals (56 -80 years old, with an average age of 66.8 Ϯ 7.0 years; mean Ϯ SD) who had been with clinically diagnosed as having dementia of the Alzheimer type (DAT) with histopathologically confirmed AD and 2) 18 healthy females (51-76 years old, with an average age of 64.7 Ϯ 6.8 years) who underwent the assay for DAT and other neurodegenerative symptoms. None of the subjects had been treated with chemotherapy before the hair sampling; all of the subjects were ambulatory, and all of the subjects had similar nutritional conditions. The hair samples were obtained by collecting the portions that had been cut off during haircuts.Hair polyamine levels, measured as described elsewhere , 5 were about 3.6 -13.8 times higher for the AD patients compared to the 18 individuals in the control group. Compared to the healthy subjects (48.03 ng/g, 19.09 -73.59 ng/g; mean, range), the putrescine levels were significantly higher in the AD patients (173.01 ng/g, 30.20 -415.01 ng/g; p Ͻ 0.002). The differences in the levels of spermidine between the AD patients (1,082.71 ng/g, 248.39 -2,532.56 ng/g) and healthy subjects (233.77 ng/g, 98.85-476.77 ng/g) were also significant ( p Ͻ 0.001). In addition, the levels of hair spermine were markedly increased in the AD patients (1,973.22 ng/g, 254.88 -5,941.46 ng/g; p Ͻ 0.001) compared to the healthy subjects (143.14 ng/g, 57.36 -259.01 ng/g). The magnitude of increase was similar to that reported previously for hair polyamines in cancer patients. 4 However, the spermidine to spermine (Spd/Spm) ratios from AD patients were decreased below 1.0 (0.66 Ϯ 0.33; p Ͻ 0.001) in all but 1 of the patients compared to those for most of the healthy subjects (1.86 Ϯ 0.95) and cancer patients (1.42 Ϯ 0.77) examined (Fig). We suspect that ODC expression is associated with cell proliferation in hair follicles, where the up-regulation of the biosynthesis and the metabolism of polyamines might occur in the AD condition.This finding suggests that the decrease in the Spd/Spm ratio below 1.0, combined with the higher levels of spermine and spermidine, might serve as a potential marker for AD. This study may be the starting point for additional studies in the field of polyamine analysis. A stu...

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