Premium
Tau in cerebrospinal fluid: A potential diagnostic marker in Alzheimer's disease
Author(s) -
Arai Hiroyuki,
Terajima Masanori,
Miura Masakazu,
Higuchi Susumu,
Muramatsu Taro,
Machida Nobuo,
Seiki Hisatomo,
Takase Sadao,
Clark Christopher M.,
Lee Virginia M.Y.,
Trojanowski John Q.,
Sasaki Hidetada
Publication year - 1995
Publication title -
annals of neurology
Language(s) - English
Resource type - Journals
SCImago Journal Rank - 4.764
H-Index - 296
eISSN - 1531-8249
pISSN - 0364-5134
DOI - 10.1002/ana.410380414
Subject(s) - cerebrospinal fluid , pathology , tau protein , alzheimer's disease , medicine , disease
Cerebrospinal fluid from 70 patients with Alzheimer's disease (AD) and 96 patients with non‐AD neurological diseases as well as 19 normal control subjects was surveyed by sandwich enzyme‐linked immunosorbent assay to quantitate levels of the microtubule‐associated protein tau in cerebrospinal fluid. The tau level was significantly increased in AD patients as compared with that in patients with non‐AD neurological diseases and control subjects. Increased tau levels were found irrespective of age at onset, apolipoprotein E genotype, and clinical stage. Western blots of AD cerebrospinal fluid proteins revealed two to three tau‐immunoreactive bands with an apparent molecular mass between 50 and 65 kd consistent with phosphorylated cerebrospinal fluid tau. Taken together, our results suggest that cerebrospinal fluid tau might reflect the progressive accumulation of altered tau due to the progressive death of neurons in the AD brain, and that the enzyme‐linked immunosorbent assay of cerebrospinal fluid tau may prove to be a reliable and early diagnostic test for AD.