Alzheimer’s biomarkers

Scientists collaborating at Cornell University and Weill Cornell Medical College have identified a panel of 23 protein biomarkers in cerebrospinal fluid that acts as a neurochemical "fingerprint', which doctors might use someday to identify patients living with Alzheimer's disease.

The study combined cutting edge proteomics technology, detailed image analysis and complex computational and statistical analyses to simultaneously compare 2000 cerebrospinal fluid proteins from 34 patients with autopsy-proven Alzheimer's disease to those of 34 age-matched controls without the disease.

High-tech methods were used to contrast the proteomes of Alzheimer's patients against those of a control cohort that included people with other forms of dementia as well as healthy individuals, looking for key differences between the two groups.

This effort yielded intriguing results: 23 proteins that individually might not point to Alzheimer's but together formed an identifying pattern or "fingerprint' specific to the illness.

For example, some of the biomarkers are associated with proteins that clog the brains of Alzheimer's patients. Other molecules were linked to inflammation, also a part of Alzheimer's brain pathology. Still other proteins in the panel were linked to synaptic dysfunction " the breakdown of communication between brain cells that occurs as Alzheimer's disease progresses.

Despite their excitement over the new findings, the researchers stress that the results still need to be replicated in much larger populations.