Protein-based biomarkers in blood serum could classify individuals with Alzheimer's disease
2010-09-13
(Press-News.org) An initial analysis suggests that biomarkers in blood serum can be combined with clinical information to accurately classify patients with Alzheimer's disease, according to a report in the September issue of Archives of Neurology, one of the JAMA/Archives journals.
"There is clearly a need for reliable and valid diagnostic and prognostic biomarkers of Alzheimer's disease, and in recent years, there has been an explosive increase of effort aimed at identifying such markers," the authors write as background information in the article. "It has been previously argued that, because of significant advantages, the ideal biomarkers would be gleaned from peripheral blood." Identifying biomarkers in the blood has several advantages over other methods of classifying patients with Alzheimer's disease, including detecting biomarkers in the cerebrospinal fluid and neuroimaging. Blood can be collected at any clinic or in-home visit and most patients will agree to the process, whereas not all facilities can conduct lumbar punctures to obtain cerebrospinal fluid. Older patients may not consent to lumbar puncture and may not be able to undergo neuroimaging because of pacemakers or other health issues.
Sid E. O'Bryant, Ph.D., of Texas Tech University Health Sciences Center, Lubbock, and colleagues in the Texas Alzheimer's Research Consortium analyzed proteins in the serum of 197 patients diagnosed with Alzheimer's disease and 203 controls without Alzheimer's disease. Statistical analyses were used to create a biomarker risk score, which included levels of a number of protein biomarkers, including fibrinogen (a clotting protein), interleukin-10 (associated with the immune system) and C-reactive protein (an inflammatory marker).
The final biomarker risk score correctly identified 80 percent of the individuals with Alzheimer's disease and accurately excluded 91 percent of the individuals without Alzheimer's disease. When other factors were also considered—age, sex, education and whether an individual had the APOE gene, which is associated with risk for Alzheimer's disease—the score correctly identified 94 percent of the individuals with Alzheimer's disease and accurately classified 84 percent of participants who did not have the disease.
"In addition to offering more accessible, rapid and cost- and time-effective methods for assessment, biomarkers (or panels of biomarkers) also hold great potential for the identification of endophenotypes within Alzheimer's disease populations that are associated with particular disease mechanisms," the authors write. In the current study, "a disproportionate number of inflammatory and vascular markers were weighted most heavily in the analyses." The findings provide support for the existence of an inflammatory subtype of Alzheimer's disease, they note.
"The identification of blood-based biomarker profiles with good diagnostic accuracy would have a profound impact worldwide and requires further validation," the authors conclude. "Additionally, the identification of pathway-specific endophenotypes among patients with Alzheimer's disease would likewise have implications for targeted therapeutics as well as understanding differential progression among diagnosed cases. With the rapidly evolving technology and the analytic techniques available, Alzheimer's disease researchers now have the tools to simultaneously analyze exponentially more information from a host of modalities, which is likely going to be necessary to understand this very complex disease."
###
(Arch Neurol. 2010;67[9]:1077-1081. Available pre-embargo to the media at www.jamamedia.org.)
Editor's Note: This study was made possible by the Texas Alzheimer's Research Consortium funded by the State of Texas through the Texas Council on Alzheimer's Disease and Related Disorders. Investigators at the University of Texas Southwestern Medical Center at Dallas also acknowledge support from a University of Texas Southwestern Alzheimer's Disease Center National Institutes of Health, National Institute on Aging grant. Please see the article for additional information, including other authors, author contributions and affiliations, financial disclosures, funding and support, etc.
END
ELSE PRESS RELEASES FROM THIS DATE:
2010-09-13
Adding albuterol, a compound commonly used to treat asthma and other respiratory diseases, to an existing treatment for patients with multiple sclerosis appears to improve clinical outcomes, according to a report in the September issue of Archives of Neurology, one of the JAMA/Archives journals.
Multiple sclerosis (MS) is a chronic inflammatory disease characterized by the degeneration of myelin, which coats nerve cells in the white matter of the central nervous system. Patients with the condition have been found to have elevated levels of interleukin-12, a biological ...
2010-09-13
A pilot study suggests the diabetes medication pioglitazone is generally well tolerated and may warrant further study as a treatment for patients with Alzheimer's disease, according to a report posted online today that will appear in the January 2011 print issue of Archives of Neurology, one of the JAMA/Archives journals.
"Alzheimer's disease is an immense and growing public health problem," the authors write as background information in the article. "Although prescription drug therapy for the symptoms of Alzheimer's disease has been available since 1993, these agents ...
2010-09-13
Taking oral antiviral medications following infection with the herpes simplex virus may be associated with a reduced risk of recurring eye-related manifestations of the disease, according to a report in the September issue of Archives of Ophthalmology, one of the JAMA/Archives journals.
"Herpes simplex virus (HSV) is a common cause of corneal disease and is the leading infectious cause of corneal blindness among developed nations," the authors write as background information in the article. After the initial exposure to the virus and the resulting systemic infection, ...
2010-09-13
STANFORD, Calif. - Repeated use of an antibiotic that is considered generally benign, because users seldom incur obvious side effects, induces cumulative and persistent changes in the composition of the beneficial microbial species inhabiting the human gut, researchers at the Stanford University School of Medicine have found.
By a conservative estimate, something like 1,000 different varieties of microbes coexist harmoniously within a typical healthy person's gut, said David Relman, MD, professor of medicine and of microbiology and immunology at the medical school and ...
2010-09-13
Unlike adults, children are able to keep information from their senses separate and may therefore perceive the visual world differently, according to research published today.
Scientists at UCL (University College London) and Birkbeck, University of London have found that children younger than 12 do not combine different sensory information to make sense of the world as adults do. This does not only apply to combining different senses, such as vision and sound, but also to the different information the brain receives when looking at a scene with one eye compared to both ...
2010-09-13
In work suggesting a new approach to treating polycystic kidney disease (PKD), a leading cause of kidney failure, researchers at Children's Hospital Boston were able to block the formation of fluid-filled cysts, the hallmark of the disease, in a mouse model. Their findings, using a compound that inhibits a receptor known as c-Met, will be published in the September 13th online edition of the Journal of Clinical Investigation.
PKD is the most common fatal genetic disease affecting Caucasians in the U.S. Currently, there is no approved treatment to halt cyst growth, which ...
2010-09-13
Cognitive scientists from the University of Rochester have discovered that playing action video games trains people to make the right decisions faster. The researchers found that video game players develop a heightened sensitivity to what is going on around them, and this benefit doesn't just make them better at playing video games, but improves a wide variety of general skills that can help with everyday activities like multitasking, driving, reading small print, keeping track of friends in a crowd, and navigating around town.
In an upcoming study in the journal Current ...
2010-09-13
(New York, NY) Nearly half the surgeons who made at least $1 million in payments from orthopedic device companies did not have that relationship published in their scientific articles, according to a study released today in the on-line edition of the Archives of Internal Medicine. The study shows that readers are not being adequately informed about conflicts of interest even when the funds involved are significant.
The study, conducted by researchers at the New York-based Institute on Medicine as a Profession (IMAP), is the first of its kind to use company records ...
2010-09-13
New York (September 13, 2010) - According to a new study a protein crucial for the immune response appears to be a key player in the progression of a devastating form of childhood leukemia called T-cell acute lymphoblastic leukemia (T-ALL). Suppressing the activity of the protein kills the leukemic cells, the study shows, opening a potential avenue to new drugs that could prevent progression of the disease.
Led by Iannis Aifantis, PhD, associate professor of pathology and director of the Cancer Stem Cell Program at the NYU Cancer Institute at NYU Langone Medical Center, ...
2010-09-13
DALLAS – Sept. 13, 2010 – A tiny molecule that spurs the progression of non-small-cell lung cancer could become a player in fighting the disease, say researchers at UT Southwestern Medical Center, who published a study on how the molecule behaves in mice in the Sept. 14 issue of Cancer Cell.
Scientists have known that the molecule microRNA-21, or miR-21, is present in overabundant quantities in human tumors, including non-small-cell lung cancer (NSCLC). Until now, however, it was unclear whether miR-21 contributed to the development of lung cancer, or whether it was simply ...
LAST 30 PRESS RELEASES:
[Press-News.org] Protein-based biomarkers in blood serum could classify individuals with Alzheimer's disease
