There is considerable interest in developing biomarkers to detect the earliest stages of Alzheimer's disease, well prior to symptoms. To the degree that Alzheimer's is a lifestyle condition, it might be postponed or averted if discovered early on. To the degree that it is not a lifestyle condition, then the first viable anti-amyloid immunotherapies offer some chance, the odds yet to be determined, of averting Alzheimer's in the earliest stages. Some progress has been made on predictive biomarkers that can be assessed a decade or more prior to symptoms, but work continues to broaden and improve upon these options.
A recent study has identified a new biomarker for Alzheimer's disease in asymptomatic stages of the disease. The molecule is miR-519a-3p, a microRNA directly linked to the expression of the cellular prion protein (PrPC), which is dysregulated in people suffering from some neurodegenerative diseases such as Alzheimer's. The search for biomarkers that are stable and easily detectable in biofluids, such as microRNAs, offers hope for detecting Alzheimer's disease in its early, asymptomatic stages. Early detection could significantly improve the diagnosis and treatment of this disease, which affects more than 35 million people worldwide.
The amount of PrPC changes over the course of Alzheimer's disease, with higher levels in the early stages of the disease and lower levels as the disease progresses. Although the mechanism responsible for these changes is not known in detail, it has been observed that certain microRNAs bind to a specific region of the PRNP gene that controls PrPC expression, reducing it. For this reason, and based on comparisons of previous studies and computational analyses in various genomic databases, the researchers selected the microRNA miR-519a-3p for their study.
"If our goal is to use miR-519a-3p as a biomarker to detect Alzheimer's dementia in hypothetically healthy people, it is essential to ensure that its levels are not altered in other neurodegenerative diseases. In our study, we compared the levels of this biomarker in samples from other tauopathies and Parkinson's disease, confirming that the changes in miR-519a-3p are specific to Alzheimer's disease. The next step is to validate miR-519a-3p as a biomarker in blood samples from different cohorts of patients, in order to start using it in the clinical diagnosis of Alzheimer's disease in peripheral samples."
Link: https://ibecbarcelon...tomatic-stages/
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