Cell Biology: Cytoplasm 11553.A 72-year-old woman is brought to the office of her family medicine
physician by her daughter. Her daughter indicates that mom has abrupt mood
swings and uncharacteristic moments of anger and aggressiveness. Recently,
she drove to her daughter’s house for her granddaughter’s birthday party and
“got lost” returning to her own apartment, eventually completing the 2 mile
drive in 2 hours. The patient has recently been unwilling or unable to bathe
or brush her teeth regularly and her hair is unkempt. There are grease stains
on her blouse. She has lost 15 pounds since her last visit to her physician a
year ago. While the patient denies any problems with memory or cognitive
ability her daughter reports episodes of forgetfulness and loss of concentra-
tion. The pathogenesis of the disease from which this patient suffers, involves
the organelles labeled with asterisks in the accompanying electron micro-
graph. Which of the following processes occurs abnormally in that structure
during the progression of this patient’s illness?
a. O-linked glycosylation
b. Sorting of tau proteins
c. Sulfation of amyloid precursor protein
d. Conformational changes and folding
e. Glycogenolysis
(Micrograph Courtesy of Dr. Kuen-Shan Hang.)