Health: Cerebrospinal fluid biomarkers associated with Alzheimer’s disease Natural Medicine | Nature’s portfolio

A tau protein fragment, MTBR-tau243, found in cerebrospinal fluid, was associated with brain tau aggregation and cognitive decline in two groups of Alzheimer’s patients. This report sheetNature medicineThese results indicate that this biomarker can be used to assess the extent of Alzheimer’s lesions and track disease progression without the need for complex imaging.

Insoluble aggregates of tau resulting from the accumulation of tau protein in the brain are one of the hallmarks of Alzheimer’s disease. Positron emission tomography (PET) is the most accurate method currently used to determine the accumulation of tau in the brain. However, this method is very expensive and requires complex equipment, which limits its use to highly specialized facilities. On the other hand, liquid biomarkers are less expensive and easier to use in clinical settings. A small preliminary study in Alzheimer’s patients previously identified MTBR-tau243 as a potential cerebrospinal fluid biomarker for tau aggregation.

Here, Randall Bateman, Oscar Hanson and colleagues, building on previous work of the same team, demonstrate the availability of amyloid and tau from two groups of Alzheimer’s patients (a group of 448 and a group of 219). By comparing the PET images with their presence. Of MTBR-tau243, we evaluated the use of MTBR-tau243 as a biomarker for tau aggregation. We also compared the performance of MTBR-tau243 with other methods for measuring phosphorylated tau in cerebrospinal fluid. They found that in both groups, MTBR-tau243 was the biomarker most closely related to the amount of tau observed on positron emission tomography, but least related to amyloid visible on positron emission tomography. This feature is distinct from other tau biomarkers that may be affected by amyloid biomarkers and is associated more with amyloid lesions than with tau lesions alone. The authors also report that MTBR-tau243 is the biomarker most closely associated with clinical cognitive changes in Alzheimer’s patients.

These results reveal that MTBR-tau243 is a specific and accurate biomarker for tau accumulation in Alzheimer’s disease, and is not affected by changes in amyloid lesions. The authors believe that this biomarker can be used to accurately track the progression of Alzheimer’s disease, and conclude that future studies in animal models will further confirm the usefulness of their findings.

doi: 10.1038/s41591-023-02443-z

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