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RETRACTED ARTICLE: Aluminum in Neurological and Neurodegenerative Disease

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This article was retracted on 23 January 2020

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Abstract

With continuing cooperation from 18 domestic and international brain banks over the last 36 years, we have analyzed the aluminum content of the temporal lobe neocortex of 511 high-quality human female brain samples from 16 diverse neurological and neurodegenerative disorders, including 2 groups of age-matched controls. Temporal lobes (Brodmann areas A20–A22) were selected for analysis because of their availability and their central role in massive information-processing operations including efferent-signal integration, cognition, and memory formation. We used the analytical technique of (i) Zeeman-type electrothermal atomic absorption spectrophotometry (ETAAS) combined with (ii) preliminary analysis from the advanced photon source (APS) hard X-ray beam (7 GeV) fluorescence raster-scanning (XRFR) spectroscopy device (undulator beam line 2-ID-E) at the Argonne National Laboratory, US Department of Energy, University of Chicago IL, USA. Neurological diseases examined were Alzheimer’s disease (AD; N = 186), ataxia Friedreich’s type (AFT; N = 6), amyotrophic lateral sclerosis (ALS; N = 16), autism spectrum disorder (ASD; N = 26), dialysis dementia syndrome (DDS; N = 27), Down’s syndrome (DS; trisomy, 21; N = 24), Huntington’s chorea (HC; N = 15), multiple infarct dementia (MID; N = 19), multiple sclerosis (MS; N = 23), Parkinson’s disease (PD; N = 27), and prion disease (PrD; N = 11) that included bovine spongiform encephalopathy (BSE; “mad cow disease”), Creutzfeldt-Jakob disease (CJD) and Gerstmann-Straussler-Sheinker syndrome (GSS), progressive multifocal leukoencephalopathy (PML; N = 11), progressive supranuclear palsy (PSP; N = 24), schizophrenia (SCZ; N = 21), a young control group (YCG; N = 22; mean age, 10.2 ± 6.1 year), and an aged control group (ACG; N = 53; mean age, 71.4 ± 9.3 year). Using ETAAS, all measurements were performed in triplicate on each tissue sample. Among these 17 common neurological conditions, we found a statistically significant trend for aluminum to be increased only in AD, DS, and DDS compared to age- and gender-matched brains from the same anatomical region. This is the largest study of aluminum concentration in the brains of human neurological and neurodegenerative disease ever undertaken. The results continue to suggest that aluminum’s association with AD, DDS, and DS brain tissues may contribute to the neuropathology of those neurological diseases but appear not to be a significant factor in other common disorders of the human brain and/or CNS.

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Change history

  • 23 January 2020

    The Editor-in Chief of Molecular Neurobiology has retracted this article [1] at the request of the corresponding author.

  • 23 January 2020

    The Editor-in Chief of Molecular Neurobiology has retracted this article [1] at the request of the corresponding author. This is because it significantly overlaps with their previous publication [2]. Both articles report the same results and as such this article is redundant.

  • 23 January 2020

    The Editor-in Chief of Molecular Neurobiology has retracted this article [1] at the request of the corresponding author. This is because it significantly overlaps with their previous publication [2]. Both articles report the same results and as such this article is redundant.

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Acknowledgements

Sample collection and selection, and the analytical, experimental, and statistical work in this ongoing research is dedicated: (i) to the memory of the late DRC McLachlan, BS, MD, Order of Canada, who first proposed a potential pathological connection between aluminum and Alzheimer's disease (AD) in the early 1970s, and spent 46+ years of his scientific career establishing the link between aluminum neurotoxicity and AD; and (ii) to the memory of the late Catherine Bergeron BS, MD, Chief of Neuropathology at Toronto General Hospital, and the Department of Physiology at the University of Toronto, Toronto ON, CANADA for major contributions to this work involving post-mortem brain tissue access, characterization and multi-analysis. Sincere thanks are also extended to the late Drs. JM Hill (JMH; Louisiana State University) and TPA Kruck (TPAK; University of Toronto) for helpful discussions in this research area and to F Culicchia, C Eicken, C Hebel, B Krishnan, K Navel, and L Wong for short postmortem interval (PMI) human brain tissues or extracts, independent confirmatory aluminum analysis, and bioinformatics and data interpretation, to Drs. Barry Lai and Stefan Vogt of the Advanced Photon Source (APS), Argonne National Laboratories, US Department of Energy at the University of Chicago, and to D Guillot for expert technical assistance. We would also like to sincerely thank the many neuropathologists, physicians, and researchers of Canada, Europe, the Russian Federation, and the USA for their cooperation and provision of high-quality, short postmortem interval human CNS or brain tissues for scientific analysis and study. We would like to further thank the following brain and CNS tissue banks for access to high-quality postmortem tissues and valuable analytical advice: the Autism Brain Net, Los Angeles CA, USA; the Coriell Institute for Medical Research, Camden, NJ, USA; Harvard University/McLean Hospital Tissue Center, Boston, MA, USA; Louisiana State University, New Orleans, LA, USA; the Lomonosov Institute, Moscow State University, Moscow, Russian Federation; the National Disease Research Interchange, Philadelphia, PA, USA; the National Institutes of Health NIH NeuroBioBank [including tissues obtained from the National Institute of Mental Health (NIMH), the Eunice Kennedy Shriver National Institute of Child Health and Human Development (NICHD), and the National Institute of Neurological Disorders and Stroke (NINDS), Bethesda, MD USA]; the Netherlands Brain Research Institute, Amsterdam, Netherlands; the New York State Institute for Basic Research, Staten Island NY, USA; the Oregon Health Sciences University, Portland OR, USA; the Southern Eye Bank, Metairie LA, USA; the University of California, Irvine CA, USA; the University of Kentucky Alzheimer’s disease Brain Bank, Lexington KY, USA; the University of Maryland Brain and Tissue Bank, Baltimore MD, USA; the University of Massachusetts, Worcester MA, USA; the University of Pennsylvania School of Medicine, Philadelphia PA, USA; and the University of Toronto Brain Bank, Toronto ON, Canada. Research on metal neurotoxicity, human and murine microRNAs, small non-coding RNA (sncRNA), pro-inflammatory, and pathogenic signaling involving the innate-immune response, neuroinflammation, and amyloidogenesis in AD, ASD, PrD, and in other human neurological disorders was supported through an unrestricted grant to the LSU Eye Center from Research to Prevent Blindness (RPB); the Louisiana Biotechnology Research Network (LBRN), the Alzheimer Association (Chicago IL. USA), the Canadian Institutes of Health Research (CIHR; CB, DRCM) and NIH grants NEI EY006311, NIA AG18031 and NIA AG038834 (WJL).

Funding

Research on metal neurotoxicity, human and murine microRNAs, small non-coding RNA (sncRNA), pro-inflammatory and pathogenic signaling in the Lukiw laboratory involving the innate-immune response, neuroinflammation, and amyloidogenesis in AD, ASD, PrD, and in other human neurological disorders was supported through an unrestricted grant to the LSU Eye Center from Research to Prevent Blindness (RPB); the Louisiana Biotechnology Research Network (LBRN), the Alzheimer Association and NIH grants NEI EY006311, NIA AG18031 and NIA AG038834 (WJL).

Author information

Authors and Affiliations

  1. Department of Physiology, University of Toronto, Toronto, ON, M5S 1A8, Canada

    Donald R. C. McLachlan, Catherine Bergeron, Maire E. Percy & Theodore P. A. Kruck

  2. Department of Neuropathology, Toronto General Hospital, Toronto, ON, M5G 2C4, Canada

    Donald R. C. McLachlan & Catherine Bergeron

  3. Russian Academy of Medical Sciences, Moscow, 113152, Russia

    Peter N. Alexandrov & Walter J. Lukiw

  4. Walsh Research Institute, Naperville, IL, 60540, USA

    William J. Walsh

  5. Alchem Biotek Research, Toronto, ON, M5S 1A8, Canada

    Aileen I. Pogue & Walter J. Lukiw

  6. Surrey Place Center, University of Toronto, Toronto, ON, M5S 1A8, Canada

    Maire E. Percy

  7. Department of Obstetrics and Gynecology, Toronto, ON, M5S 1A8, Canada

    Maire E. Percy

  8. Department of Biostatistics, School of Public Health, LSU Health Sciences Center, New Orleans, LA, 70112, USA

    Zhide Fang

  9. Department of Genetics, Louisiana State University Health Sciences Center, New Orleans, LA, 70112, USA

    Zhide Fang

  10. Louisiana Clinical and Translational Science Center (LA CaTS), LSU Health Sciences Center, New Orleans, LA, 70112, USA

    Zhide Fang

  11. LSU Neuroscience Center, Louisiana State University Health Sciences Center, New Orleans, LA, 70112, USA

    Nathan M. Sharfman, Vivian Jaber, Yuhai Zhao, Wenhong Li & Walter J. Lukiw

  12. Department of Anatomy and Cell Biology, Louisiana State University Health Sciences Center, New Orleans, LA, 70112, USA

    Yuhai Zhao

  13. Department of Pharmacology, School of Pharmacy, Jiangxi University of TCM, Nanchang, Jiangxi, 330004, People’s Republic of China

    Wenhong Li

  14. Department of Neurology, Louisiana State University Health Sciences Center, New Orleans, LA, 70112, USA

    Walter J. Lukiw

  15. Department of Ophthalmology, Louisiana State University Health Sciences Center, New Orleans, LA, 70112, USA

    Walter J. Lukiw

Authors
  1. Donald R. C. McLachlan
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  2. Catherine Bergeron
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  3. Peter N. Alexandrov
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  4. William J. Walsh
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  7. Theodore P. A. Kruck
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  8. Zhide Fang
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  13. Walter J. Lukiw
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Contributions

DRCM, CB, PNA, WW, AIP, MEP, TPAK, YZ, NS,VJ, and WJL aided in the acquisition of all brain tissues and performed all analytical experiments involving ETAAS and XRFR and assisted to interpret and analyze all data; PNA, ZF, AIP, YZ, WL and WJL collected, archived, organized, and tabulated all data and performed statistical analysis; AIP and WJL wrote the paper.

Corresponding author

Correspondence to Walter J. Lukiw.

Ethics declarations

Ethics Statement

All acquisition, handling, experimental, and analytical procedures involving postmortem human brain tissues were carried out in an ethical manner in strict accordance with the ethics review board policies at brain and tissue donor institutions and at the Louisiana State University (LSU) Health Sciences Center. Informed consent from next of kin was obtained at brain and tissue donor institutions for all tissue samples prior to autopsy and donation; coded postmortem brain tissue samples (containing no personal identifying information of the donors) were obtained from the 18 brain and tissue banks listed in the Acknowledgements section above. The ethical use of postmortem human brain tissues and their analyses were also carried out in strict accordance with the Institutional Biosafety Committee and the Institutional Review Board Committee (IBC/IRBC) ethical guidelines IBC#18059 and IRBC#6774 at the LSU Health Sciences Center, New Orleans LA 70112 USA.

Conflict of Interest Statement

Declaration of interest for all authors including financial and personal relationships with other people or organizations: none. We wish to confirm that there are no known conflicts of interest associated with this publication and there has been no significant financial support for this work that could have influenced its outcome. The experimental and research work in this paper was funded by the LSU Eye Center from Research to Prevent Blindness (RPB), the Louisiana Biotechnology Research Network (LBRN), the National Institutes of Health (NIH), Bethesda MD, USA and the Alzheimer Association Chicago IL, USA, and was not supported by any pro- or anti-aluminum lobby or private foundation.

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Publisher’s Note

Springer Nature remains neutral with regard to jurisdictional claims in published maps and institutional affiliations.

The Editor-in Chief of Molecular Neurobiology has retracted this article [1] at the request of the corresponding author. This is because it significantly overlaps with their previous publication [2]. Both articles report the same results and as such this article is redundant.

Walter J. Lukiw, Maire E. Percy, and Zhide Fang agree to this retraction. William J. Walsh and Yuhai Zhao do not agree to this retraction. Aileen I. Pogue, Nathan M. Sharfman, Vivian Jaber, and Wenhong Li have not responded to any correspondence from the editor/publisher about this retraction. Donald R. C. McLachlan, Catherine Bergeron, Peter N. Alexandrov, and Theodore P. A. Kruck are deceased.

[1] McLachlan, D.R.C., Bergeron, C., Alexandrov, P.N. et al. Mol Neurobiol (2019) 56: 1531. https://doi.org/10.1007/s12035-018-1441-x

[2] McLachlan, D.R.C., Alexandrov, P.N., Walsh, W.J. et al. J Alzheimers Dis Parkinsonism (2018) 8(6): 457. https://doi.org/10.4172/2161-0460.1000457

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McLachlan, D.R.C., Bergeron, C., Alexandrov, P.N. et al. RETRACTED ARTICLE: Aluminum in Neurological and Neurodegenerative Disease. Mol Neurobiol 56, 1531–1538 (2019). https://doi.org/10.1007/s12035-018-1441-x

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