Influence of Water Quality on Cholesterol-Induced Tau Pathology: Preliminary Data

Table 1

Tau levels in plasma, whole hippocampus, and frontal cortex, and incidence and density of NFT-like AT8 immunoreactive neurons in the frontal and temporal cortices in rabbits grouped according to diet and water quality. The four groups of rabbits were female rabbits fed (1) normal rabbit chow and provided local tap water to drink (Normal chow-tap), (2) 1% cholesterol diet and distilled drinking water (1% Cholesterol-DW), (3) 1% cholesterol diet and copper supplemented distilled drinking water (1% Cholesterol-DW/Cu), or (4) 1% cholesterol diet and local tap water (1% Cholesterol-tap) for 5 months.

Group	Normal chow-tap	1% Cholesterol-DW	1% Cholesterol-DW/Cu	1% Cholesterol-tap
𝑁	3	3	3	3
Tau level Plasma	24.8±7.7	35.6±3.7	37.2±3.1	34.4±6.8
Tau level Hippocampus	40.4±11.5	216.1±71.3	148.4±48.8	71.8±33.3
Tau level frontal cortex	36.9±15.9	294.2±130.6	62.9±1.9	53.1±32.7
Density of AT8 neurons in frontal cortex	none	abundant	very few isolated	Single faint
Number of animals with AT8 stained Neurons in frontal cortex	0 of 3	3 of 3	2 of 3	1 of 3
Density of AT8 neurons Temporal Cortex	none	Abundant patches of multiple cells	numerous isolated	few isolated
Number of Animals with AT8 neurons in temporal cortex	0 of 3	3 of 3	3 of 3	2 of 3