Prior to the introduction of imaging and spinal fluid testing for those who are still alive, a conclusive diagnosis of Alzheimer’s disease (AD) could only be made after a patient had passed away. However, new biomarker studies have changed this. The tests, however, can only detect severe disease, distinguishing advanced AD from associated problems. Researchers have now discovered a biomarker that could assist doctors in diagnosing AD early, when a patient transitions into moderate cognitive impairment, according to a report in ACS Chemical Neuroscience (MCI).
Some researchers have focused on the investigation of small alterations in a protein called tau in their search for AD biomarkers. The tau protein may become more likely to clump as a result of these mutations, which can also cause neuron death and memory impairment.
Two of these alterations, referred to as p-tau181 and p-tau217, involve phosphorylating tau at particular amino acids. It has been demonstrated that these biomarkers can distinguish the tissues of AD patients from those of those who have other neurodegenerative disorders. Bin Xu, Jerry Wang, Ling Wu, and colleagues looked for new p-tau biomarkers that would be useful AD diagnostics or that might perhaps capture AD in its early stages because it’s beneficial to have numerous biomarkers in the doctors’ toolkit.
The researchers discovered multiple p-tau indicators that were specifically linked to tau aggregation using post-mortem brain tissue from AD patients and non-AD controls.
The National Institutes of Health, the Commonwealth of Virginia’s Alzheimer’s and Related Diseases Research Award Fund, the Diabetes Action Research and Education Foundation, the Weston Brain Institute, the Michael J. Fox Foundation for Parkinson’s Research, the Duke Clinical & Translational Science Institute, and the Duke/UNC Alz Initiative provided funding for the study, which was acknowledged by the authors.
