Top 5 journal articles on Alzheimer’s disease and biomarkers
Alzheimer’s disease has notoriously been difficult to diagnose in its earliest stages, with a confident diagnosis typically only being confirmed posthumously. However, recent studies are increasingly finding biomarkers linked to Alzheimer’s symptoms, thus furthering the progress to an early diagnosis in patients. Here, we take a look at some of the most-read articles on biomarkers and Alzheimer’s disease, according to Altmetrics.
High performance plasma amyloid-β biomarkers for Alzheimer’s disease
In this article, published by Nature, Akinori Nakamura, Naoki Kaneko, Victor L. Villemagne et al. highlight their findings on the measurement of high-performance plasma amyloid-β biomarkers, as they aim to find a minimally invasive, cost-effective blood-based biomarker to aid clinical trials of disease-modifying therapies for Alzheimer’s disease in it’s earliest and mildest stages. Signs of amyloid-β deposition in the brain are one of the earliest pathological indicators of Alzheimer’s disease but the only validated methods of identifying this is through amyloid-β positron-emission tomography (PET) imaging or measurement of amyloid-β in cerebrospinal fluid.
Brain-derived tau: a novel blood-based biomarker for Alzheimer’s disease-type neurodegeneration
Brain-derived tau (BD-tau), to the date of this study, outperforms current blood diagnostic tests used to find Alzheimer’s-related neurodegeneration, as it is specific to Alzheimer’s and correlates better with Alzheimer’s neurodegeneration biomarkers. The researchers of this study aimed to evaluate the effectiveness of monitoring the blood levels of BD-tau in order to help improve clinical trial design and facilitate screening and enrollment of patients from underrepresented populations that aren’t typically included in research cohorts.
The cause of Alzheimer’s disease is still undefined. However, there is the potential for the gene apolipoprotein E (APOE), which is a major genetic risk factor for Alzheimer’s disease, to have an influence on common blood biomarkers. Thus, this research team sought to investigate blood biomarkers in the context of APOE genotype in order to gain a greater understanding of the workings of Alzheimer’s and dementia risks. This study, published by the Journal of Alzheimer’s Disease, also aimed to conduct the largest (to date of the study) single-protocol investigation of blood biomarkers, in collaboration with UK Biobank, to find a correlation.
Plasma biomarker profiles in autosomal dominant Alzheimer’s disease
Researchers are constantly making the effort to find non-invasive methods for Alzheimer’s diagnosis, as immunoassays and mass spectrometry methods, commonly used for final diagnosis, require specific samples from the patients which can be invasive when retrieving antibodies for testing. In this study, published in Brain, researchers sought to investigate the timing and performance of emerging plasma biomarkers in mutation carriers compared to non-carriers in autosomal dominant Alzheimer’s disease to see if they could be effective tools to trace early Alzheimer’s disease-related abnormalities in a non-invasive way.
In this study, researchers Ron Brookmeyer and Nada Abdalla, from the University of California (USA), investigated the potential first indicators of lifetime and ten-year risks of Alzheimer’s disease dementia based on tests for preclinical disease focused on age, gender and biomarkers. Lifetime risks are significant as they are probable estimates of developing Alzheimer’s disease dementia during an individual’s lifespan.
References
- Nakamura A, Kaneko N, Villemagne V. et al. High performance plasma amyloid-β biomarkers for Alzheimer’s disease. Nature. 554, 249–254, doi: 10.1038/nature25456 (2018)
- Fernando Gonzalez-Ortiz, Michael Turton, Przemysław R Kac. et al. Brain-derived tau: a novel blood-based biomarker for Alzheimer’s disease-type neurodegeneration. Brain. 1-14 doi: 10.1093/brain/awac407 (2022)
- Ferguson A, Tank R, Lyall L. et al. Alzheimer’s Disease Susceptibility Gene Apolipoprotein E (APOE) and Blood Biomarkers in UK Biobank (N = 395,769). Journal of Alzheimer’s Disease. 1541 – 1551 doi: 10.3233/JAD-200338 (2020)
- Johansson C, Thordardottir S, Laffita-Mesa J. et al. Plasma biomarker profiles in autosomal dominant Alzheimer’s disease. Brain. 1-9, doi:10.1093/brain/awac399 (2023)
- Brookmeyer R and Abdalla N. Estimation of lifetime risks of Alzheimer’s disease dementia using biomarkers for preclinical disease. Alzheimer’s & Dementia. (14) 981-988, doi: 10.1016/j.jalz.2018.03.005 (2018)
