Molecular understanding of aluminum bioinorganic chemistry in relevance to the pathology of Alzheimer's disease

Aluminum (Al) is a suspected etiological factor in neurological disorders like Alzheimer's, Parkinson's, Huntington's diseases etc. The understanding of Al neurobiochemistry was hampered due to Al speciation chemistry and differential sensitivity animal models for Al toxicity. Experimental and circumstantial evidence provided a great deal of information on the complex inorganic biochemistry of Al in relevance to pathological events observed in Alzheimer's brains. In this contribution, the speciation chemistry of Al in relevance to neurobiology, role of Al, in modulating trace elemental homeostasis in human brains, Al-induced changes in animal brains mimicking Alzheimer's human brains, and its interaction with DNA are discussed.