| 1. |
- Bridel, Claire, et al.
(författare)
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Diagnostic Value of Cerebrospinal Fluid Neurofilament Light Protein in Neurology : A Systematic Review and Meta-analysis
- 2019
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Ingår i: JAMA Neurology. - : American Medical Association (AMA). - 2168-6149 .- 2168-6157. ; 76:9, s. 1035-1048
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Forskningsöversikt (refereegranskat)abstract
- Importance Neurofilament light protein (NfL) is elevated in cerebrospinal fluid (CSF) of a number of neurological conditions compared with healthy controls (HC) and is a candidate biomarker for neuroaxonal damage. The influence of age and sex is largely unknown, and levels across neurological disorders have not been compared systematically to date.Objectives To assess the associations of age, sex, and diagnosis with NfL in CSF (cNfL) and to evaluate its potential in discriminating clinically similar conditions.Data Sources PubMed was searched for studies published between January 1, 2006, and January 1, 2016, reporting cNfL levels (using the search terms neurofilament light and cerebrospinal fluid) in neurological or psychiatric conditions and/or in HC.Study Selection Studies reporting NfL levels measured in lumbar CSF using a commercially available immunoassay, as well as age and sex.Data Extraction and Synthesis Individual-level data were requested from study authors. Generalized linear mixed-effects models were used to estimate the fixed effects of age, sex, and diagnosis on log-transformed NfL levels, with cohort of origin modeled as a random intercept.Main Outcome and Measure The cNfL levels adjusted for age and sex across diagnoses.Results Data were collected for 10 059 individuals (mean [SD] age, 59.7 [18.8] years; 54.1% female). Thirty-five diagnoses were identified, including inflammatory diseases of the central nervous system (n = 2795), dementias and predementia stages (n = 4284), parkinsonian disorders (n = 984), and HC (n = 1332). The cNfL was elevated compared with HC in a majority of neurological conditions studied. Highest levels were observed in cognitively impaired HIV-positive individuals (iHIV), amyotrophic lateral sclerosis, frontotemporal dementia (FTD), and Huntington disease. In 33.3% of diagnoses, including HC, multiple sclerosis, Alzheimer disease (AD), and Parkinson disease (PD), cNfL was higher in men than women. The cNfL increased with age in HC and a majority of neurological conditions, although the association was strongest in HC. The cNfL overlapped in most clinically similar diagnoses except for FTD and iHIV, which segregated from other dementias, and PD, which segregated from atypical parkinsonian syndromes.Conclusions and Relevance These data support the use of cNfL as a biomarker of neuroaxonal damage and indicate that age-specific and sex-specific (and in some cases disease-specific) reference values may be needed. The cNfL has potential to assist the differentiation of FTD from AD and PD from atypical parkinsonian syndromes.
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| 2. |
- Ahmad, Shahzad, et al.
(författare)
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CDH6 and HAGH protein levels in plasma associate with Alzheimer’s disease in APOE ε4 carriers
- 2020
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Ingår i: Scientific Reports. - : Springer Science and Business Media LLC. - 2045-2322. ; 10:1
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Tidskriftsartikel (refereegranskat)abstract
- Many Alzheimer’s disease (AD) genes including Apolipoprotein E (APOE) are found to be expressed in blood-derived macrophages and thus may alter blood protein levels. We measured 91 neuro-proteins in plasma from 316 participants of the Rotterdam Study (incident AD = 161) using Proximity Extension Ligation assay. We studied the association of plasma proteins with AD in the overall sample and stratified by APOE. Findings from the Rotterdam study were replicated in 186 AD patients of the BioFINDER study. We further evaluated the correlation of these protein biomarkers with total tau (t-tau), phosphorylated tau (p-tau) and amyloid-beta (Aβ) 42 levels in cerebrospinal fluid (CSF) in the Amsterdam Dementia Cohort (N = 441). Finally, we conducted a genome-wide association study (GWAS) to identify the genetic variants determining the blood levels of AD-associated proteins. Plasma levels of the proteins, CDH6 (β = 0.638, P = 3.33 × 10−4) and HAGH (β = 0.481, P = 7.20 × 10−4), were significantly elevated in APOE ε4 carrier AD patients. The findings in the Rotterdam Study were replicated in the BioFINDER study for both CDH6 (β = 1.365, P = 3.97 × 10−3) and HAGH proteins (β = 0.506, P = 9.31 × 10−7) when comparing cases and controls in APOE ε4 carriers. In the CSF, CDH6 levels were positively correlated with t-tau and p-tau in the total sample as well as in APOE ε4 stratum (P < 1 × 10−3). The HAGH protein was not detected in CSF. GWAS of plasma CDH6 protein levels showed significant association with a cis-regulatory locus (rs111283466, P = 1.92 × 10−9). CDH6 protein is implicated in cell adhesion and synaptogenesis while HAGH protein is related to the oxidative stress pathway. Our findings suggest that these pathways may be altered during presymptomatic AD and that CDH6 and HAGH may be new blood-based biomarkers.
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| 3. |
- Ahmadi, Khazar, et al.
(författare)
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Fixel-Based Analysis Reveals Tau-Related White Matter Changes in Early Stages of Alzheimer’s Disease
- 2024
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Ingår i: Journal of Neuroscience. - 0270-6474. ; 44:18
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Tidskriftsartikel (refereegranskat)abstract
- Several studies have shown white matter (WM) abnormalities in Alzheimer’s disease (AD) using diffusion tensor imaging (DTI). Nonetheless, robust characterization of WM changes has been challenging due to the methodological limitations of DTI. We applied fixel-based analyses (FBA) to examine microscopic differences in fiber density (FD) and macroscopic changes in fiber cross-section (FC) in early stages of AD (N = 393, 212 females). FBA was also compared with DTI, free-water corrected (FW)-DTI and diffusion kurtosis imaging (DKI). We further investigated the correlation of FBA and tensor-derived metrics with AD pathology and cognition. FBA metrics were decreased in the entire cingulum bundle, uncinate fasciculus and anterior thalamic radiations in Aβ-positive patients with mild cognitive impairment compared to control groups. Metrics derived from DKI, and FW-DTI showed similar alterations whereas WM degeneration detected by DTI was more widespread. Tau-PET uptake in medial temporal regions was only correlated with reduced FC mainly in the parahippocampal cingulum in Aβ-positive individuals. This tau-related WM alteration was also associated with impaired memory. Despite the spatially extensive between-group differences in DTI-metrics, the link between WM and tau aggregation was only revealed using FBA metrics implying high sensitivity but low specificity of DTI-based measures in identifying subtle tau-related WM degeneration. No relationship was found between amyloid load and any diffusion-MRI measures. Our results indicate that early tau-related WM alterations in AD are due to macrostructural changes specifically captured by FBA metrics. Thus, future studies assessing the effects of AD pathology in WM tracts should consider using FBA metrics.
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| 4. |
- Ahmadi, Khazar, et al.
(författare)
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Gray matter hypoperfusion is a late pathological event in the course of Alzheimer's disease
- 2023
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Ingår i: Journal of cerebral blood flow and metabolism : official journal of the International Society of Cerebral Blood Flow and Metabolism. - 1559-7016. ; 43:4, s. 565-580
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Tidskriftsartikel (refereegranskat)abstract
- Several studies have shown decreased cerebral blood flow (CBF) in Alzheimer's disease (AD). However, the role of hypoperfusion in the disease pathogenesis remains unclear. Combining arterial spin labeling MRI, PET, and CSF biomarkers, we investigated the associations between gray matter (GM)-CBF and the key mechanisms in AD including amyloid-β (Aβ) and tau pathology, synaptic and axonal degeneration. Further, we applied a disease progression modeling to characterize the temporal sequence of different AD biomarkers. Lower perfusion was observed in temporo-occipito-parietal cortex in the Aβ-positive cognitively impaired compared to both Aβ-negative and Aβ-positive cognitively unimpaired individuals. In participants along the AD spectrum, GM-CBF was associated with tau, synaptic and axonal dysfunction, but not Aβ in similar cortical regions. Axonal degeneration was further associated with hypoperfusion in cognitively unimpaired individuals. Disease progression modeling revealed that GM-CBF disruption Followed the abnormality of biomarkers of Aβ, tau and brain atrophy. These findings indicate that tau tangles and neurodegeneration are more closely connected with GM-CBF changes than Aβ pathology. Although subjected to the sensitivity of the employed neuroimaging techniques and the modeling approach, these findings suggest that hypoperfusion might not be an early event associated with the build-up of Aβ in preclinical phase of AD.
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| 5. |
- Andersson, Carl-Henrik, et al.
(författare)
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A Genetic Variant of the Sortilin 1 Gene isAssociated with Reduced Risk ofAlzheimer's Disease
- 2016
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Ingår i: Journal of Alzheimer's Disease. - 1387-2877 .- 1875-8908. ; 53:4, s. 1353-1363
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Tidskriftsartikel (refereegranskat)abstract
- Alzheimer's disease (AD) is a neurodegenerative disorder represented by the accumulation of intracellular tau protein and extracellular deposits of amyloid-β (Aβ) in the brain. The gene sortilin 1 (SORT1) has previously been associated with cardiovascular disease in gene association studies. It has also been proposed to be involved in AD pathogenesis through facilitating Aβ clearance by binding apoE/Aβ complexes prior to cellular uptake. However, the neuropathological role of SORT1 in AD is not fully understood. To evaluate the associations between gene variants of SORT1 and risk of AD, we performed genetic analyses in a Swedish case-control cohort. Ten single nucleotide polymorphisms (SNPs), covering the whole SORT1 gene, were selected and genotyped in 620 AD patients and 1107 controls. The SNP rs17646665, located in a non-coding region of the SORT1 gene, remained significantly associated with decreased risk of AD after multiple testing (pc=0.0061). In addition, other SNPs were found to be nominally associated with risk of AD, as well as altered cognitive function and the CSF biomarker Aβ42, but these associations did not survive correction for multiple testing. The fact that SORT1 has been strongly associated with risk of cardiovascular disease is intriguing as cardiovascular disease is also regarded as a risk factor for AD. Finally, increased knowledge about SORT1 function has a potential to increase our understanding of APOE, the strongest risk factor for AD.
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| 6. |
- Andersson, Malin E, 1978, et al.
(författare)
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Kinesin gene variability may affect tau phosphorylation in early Alzheimer's disease.
- 2007
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Ingår i: International journal of molecular medicine. - 1107-3756 .- 1791-244X. ; 20:2, s. 233-9
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Tidskriftsartikel (refereegranskat)abstract
- Kinesin is a microtubule-associated motor protein that transports Alzheimer-associated amyloid precursor protein (APP) in neurons. In animal models, impaired kinesin-mediated APP transport seems to enhance formation of the neurotoxic 42 amino acid fragment of beta-amyloid (A beta 42). In man, one study suggests that a polymorphism (rs8702, 56,836G>C) in the kinesin light chain 1 gene (KNS2) may affect the risk of Alzheimer's disease (AD). To further assess KNS2 as a susceptibility gene for AD we analyzed 802 patients with sporadic AD and 286 controls, 134 longitudinally followed patients with mild cognitive impairment (MCI) and 39 cognitively stable controls for the rs8702 polymorphism. The rs8702 polymorphism did not influence risk of AD (p=0.46). However, rs8702 interacted with APOE epsilon 4 carrier status in AD (p=0.006) and influenced cerebrospinal fluid levels of hyperphosphorylated tau in MCI patients who converted to AD during follow-up (p=0.018). These findings support earlier indications that genetic variability in the KNS2 gene may play a role during early stages of AD pathogenesis.
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| 7. |
- Ashton, Nicholas J., et al.
(författare)
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A multicentre validation study of the diagnostic value of plasma neurofilament light
- 2021
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Ingår i: Nature Communications. - : Springer Science and Business Media LLC. - 2041-1723. ; 12, s. 1-12
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Tidskriftsartikel (refereegranskat)abstract
- Increased cerebrospinal fluid neurofilament light (NfL) is a recognized biomarker for neurodegeneration that can also be assessed in blood. Here, we investigate plasma NfL as a marker of neurodegeneration in 13 neurodegenerative disorders, Down syndrome, depression and cognitively unimpaired controls from two multicenter cohorts: King's College London (n = 805) and the Swedish BioFINDER study (n = 1,464). Plasma NfL was significantly increased in all cortical neurodegenerative disorders, amyotrophic lateral sclerosis and atypical parkinsonian disorders. We demonstrate that plasma NfL is clinically useful in identifying atypical parkinsonian disorders in patients with parkinsonism, dementia in individuals with Down syndrome, dementia among psychiatric disorders, and frontotemporal dementia in patients with cognitive impairment. Data-driven cut-offs highlighted the fundamental importance of age-related clinical cut-offs for disorders with a younger age of onset. Finally, plasma NfL performs best when applied to indicate no underlying neurodegeneration, with low false positives, in all age-related cut-offs.
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| 8. |
- Berron, David, et al.
(författare)
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Early stages of tau pathology and its associations with functional connectivity, atrophy and memory
- 2021
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Ingår i: Brain. - : Oxford University Press (OUP). - 0006-8950 .- 1460-2156. ; 144:9, s. 2771-2783
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Tidskriftsartikel (refereegranskat)abstract
- In Alzheimer's disease, post-mortem studies have shown that the first cortical site where neurofibrillary tangles appear is the transentorhinal region, a subregion within the medial temporal lobe that largely overlaps with Brodmann area 35, and the entorhinal cortex. Here we used tau-PET imaging to investigate the sequence of tau pathology progression within the human medial temporal lobe and across regions in the posterior-medial system. Our objective was to study how medial temporal tau is related to functional connectivity, regional atrophy, and memory performance. We included 215 amyloid-β- cognitively unimpaired, 81 amyloid-β+ cognitively unimpaired and 87 amyloid-β+ individuals with mild cognitive impairment, who each underwent 18F-RO948 tau and 18F-flutemetamol amyloid PET imaging, structural T1-MRI and memory assessments as part of the Swedish BioFINDER-2 study. First, event-based modelling revealed that the entorhinal cortex and Brodmann area 35 show the earliest signs of tau accumulation followed by the anterior and posterior hippocampus, Brodmann area 36 and the parahippocampal cortex. In later stages, tau accumulation became abnormal in neocortical temporal and finally parietal brain regions. Second, in cognitively unimpaired individuals, increased tau load was related to local atrophy in the entorhinal cortex, Brodmann area 35 and the anterior hippocampus and tau load in several anterior medial temporal lobe subregions was associated with distant atrophy of the posterior hippocampus. Tau load, but not atrophy, in these regions was associated with lower memory performance. Further, tau-related reductions in functional connectivity in critical networks between the medial temporal lobe and regions in the posterior-medial system were associated with this early memory impairment. Finally, in patients with mild cognitive impairment, the association of tau load in the hippocampus with memory performance was partially mediated by posterior hippocampal atrophy. In summary, our findings highlight the progression of tau pathology across medial temporal lobe subregions and its disease stage-specific association with memory performance. While tau pathology might affect memory performance in cognitively unimpaired individuals via reduced functional connectivity in critical medial temporal lobe-cortical networks, memory impairment in mild cognitively impaired patients is associated with posterior hippocampal atrophy.
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| 9. |
- Bischof, Gérard N., et al.
(författare)
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Clinical validity of second-generation tau PET tracers as biomarkers for Alzheimer’s disease in the context of a structured 5-phase development framework
- 2021
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Ingår i: European Journal of Nuclear Medicine and Molecular Imaging. - : Springer Science and Business Media LLC. - 1619-7070 .- 1619-7089. ; 48:7, s. 2110-2120
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Forskningsöversikt (refereegranskat)abstract
- Purpose: In 2017, the Geneva Alzheimer’s disease (AD) strategic biomarker roadmap initiative proposed a framework of the systematic validation AD biomarkers to harmonize and accelerate their development and implementation in clinical practice. Here, we use this framework to examine the translatability of the second-generation tau PET tracers into the clinical context. Methods: All available literature was systematically searched based on a set of search terms that related independently to analytic validity (phases 1–2), clinical validity (phase 3–4), and clinical utility (phase 5). The progress on each of the phases was determined based on scientific criteria applied for each phase and coded as fully, partially, preliminary achieved or not achieved at all. Results: The validation of the second-generation tau PET tracers has successfully passed the analytical phase 1 of the strategic biomarker roadmap. Assay definition studies showed evidence on the superiority over first-generation tau PET tracers in terms of off-target binding. Studies have partially achieved the primary aim of the analytical validity stage (phase 2), and preliminary evidence has been provided for the assessment of covariates on PET signal retention. Studies investigating of the clinical validity in phases 3, 4, and 5 are still underway. Conclusion: The current literature provides overall preliminary evidence on the establishment of the second-generation tau PET tracers into the clinical context, thereby successfully addressing some methodological issues from the tau PET tracer of the first generation. Nevertheless, bigger cohort studies, longitudinal follow-up, and examination of diverse disease population are still needed to gauge their clinical validity.
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| 10. |
- Blennow, Kaj, et al.
(författare)
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Cerebrospinal fluid tau fragment correlates with tau PET : a candidate biomarker for tangle pathology
- 2020
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Ingår i: Brain : a journal of neurology. - : Oxford University Press (OUP). - 1460-2156. ; 143:2, s. 650-660
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Tidskriftsartikel (refereegranskat)abstract
- To date, there is no validated fluid biomarker for tau pathology in Alzheimer's disease, with contradictory results from studies evaluating the correlation between phosphorylated tau in CSF with tau PET imaging. Tau protein is subjected to proteolytic processing into fragments before being secreted to the CSF. A recent study suggested that tau cleavage after amino acid 368 by asparagine endopeptidase (AEP) is upregulated in Alzheimer's disease. We used immunoprecipitation followed by mass spectrometric analyses to evaluate the presence of tau368 species in CSF. A novel Simoa® assay for quantification of tau368 in CSF was developed, while total tau (t-tau) was measured by ELISA and the presence of tau368 in tangles was evaluated using immunohistochemistry. The diagnostic utility of tau368 was first evaluated in a pilot study (Alzheimer's disease = 20, control = 20), then in a second cohort where the IWG-2 biomarker criteria were applied (Alzheimer's disease = 37, control = 45), and finally in a third cohort where the correlation with 18F-GTP1 tau PET was evaluated (Alzheimer's disease = 38, control = 11). The tau368/t-tau ratio was significantly decreased in Alzheimer's disease (P < 0.001) in all cohorts. Immunohistochemical staining demonstrated that tau fragments ending at 368 are present in tangles. There was a strong negative correlation between the CSF tau368/t-tau ratio and 18F-GTP1 retention. Our data suggest that tau368 is a tangle-enriched fragment and that the CSF ratio tau368/t-tau reflects tangle pathology. This novel tau biomarker could be used to improve diagnosis of Alzheimer's disease and to facilitate the development of drug candidates targeting tau pathology. Furthermore, future longitudinal studies will increase our understanding of tau pathophysiology in Alzheimer's disease and other tauopathies.
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