Open AccessCan agrin cerebrospinal fluid concentration be used as an early biomarker for Alzheimer's disease?
Author(s) -
Del Campo Milan Marta,
Zuroff Leah,
Jimenez Connie R.,
Scheltens Philip,
Teunissen Charlotte E.
Publication year - 2015
Publication title -
alzheimer's and dementia: diagnosis, assessment and disease monitoring
Language(s) - English
Resource type - Journals
SCImago Journal Rank - 2.497
H-Index - 37
ISSN - 2352-8729
DOI - 10.1016/j.dadm.2014.11.008
Subject(s) - agrin , cerebrospinal fluid , biomarker , disease , medicine , alzheimer's disease , pathology , biology , biochemistry , receptor , acetylcholine receptor
The need for effective treatments halting Alzheimer's disease (AD) urges the discovery of the earliest possible biomarkers. Agrin is increased in the early stages of AD and is involved in amyloid‐β (Aβ) fibrillation and synaptogenesis. We investigated the potential of agrin as an early AD cerebrospinal fluid (CSF) biomarker. We analyzed the agrin CSF concentration in nondemented controls (n = 20) and those with mild (n = 20) and severe (n = 20) AD. The levels of agrin CSF were not significantly divergent among the different patient groups and did not correlate with the concentration of Aβ 42, total tau, phosphorylated tau, or the Mini Mental State Examination scores. However, agrin strongly correlated with age in those with dementia. The results indicate that agrin cannot be used as an early AD CSF biomarker using the current immunoassay. However, our population was relatively young; thus, the correlation between agrin and age suggests that stronger differences in agrin concentrations might be found in older groups with more heterogeneous AD pathologic features.