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Researchers seeking to identify Alzheimer's
Risk make significant progress by focusing
on a specific Blood Biomarker
Newswise — A simple blood test to detect
whether a person might develop Alzheimer’s
disease is within sight and could eventually
help scientists in their quest toward
reversing the disease’s onset in those
likely to develop the debilitating
neurological condition.
Building on a study that started 20 years
ago with an elderly population in Northern
Manhattan at risk or in various stages of
developing Alzheimer’s disease, a Columbia
University Medical Center research group has
yielded ground-breaking findings that could
change the way the disease is treated or
someday prevent it.
These findings suggest that by looking at
the blood doctors may be able to detect a
person’s predisposition to developing the
dementia-inducing disease that robs a person
of their memory and ability carry out tasks
essential to life.
Results presented online in the Proceedings
of the National Academy of Sciences during
the week of Sept. 8, 2008 suggest that
individuals with elevated levels of a
certain peptide in the blood plasma, Amyloid
Beta 42 (Aß42), are at increased risk of
developing Alzheimer’s disease and that the
decline of Aß42 in the bloodstream may
reflect the compartmentalization or “traffic
jam” of Aß42 in the brain, which occurs in
the brain’s of people with Alzheimer’s.
“To date, Aß42 levels have measured most
reliably in the cerebrospinal fluid, which
is more difficult to collect than blood,”
said Nicole Schupf, Ph.D., Dr.P.H.,
associate professor of clinical epidemiology
at Columbia University Medical Center and
lead author of the paper.
“Blood draws can
be done with relative ease and greater
frequency than spinal taps, which is
typically the way cerebrospinal fluid is
collected.”
In this study, researchers found that plasma
levels of Aß42 appear to increase before the
onset of Alzheimer’s disease and decline
shortly after the onset of dementia.
Researchers surmise that Aß42 may become
trapped in the brain, which could account
for the decrease in levels post-dementia.
The principal investigator on the Northern
Manhattan study, Richard Mayeux, M.D., M.S.,
professor of neurology, psychiatry, and
epidemiology, and co-director of the Taub
Institute of Research on Alzheimer’s Disease
and the Aging Brain at CUMC, likens the
finding to something similar that is seen in
heart attack patients, who typically have
elevated lipid levels in their bloodstream
prior to a heart attack, but post-heart
attack lipid levels may decrease.
Using more specific antibodies developed by
the Ravetch Laboratory at Rockefeller
University, the researchers were able to
hone in on the most detrimental form of
amyloid compound, the protofibrillar form of
Aß, according to Dr. Mayeux, who is the
senior author of this paper.
While the cognitive impairments of
Alzheimer’s can be monitored throughout the
disease course, clinicians have had no
reliable way to monitor the pathologic
progression of the disease.
Being able to reliably measure Aß levels in
the blood could provide clinicians with a
tool that forecasts the onset of Alzheimer’s
much earlier.
Earlier detection would of
course be an important step in combating the
disease, researchers said.
This research is supported by a Program
Project Grant by the National Institutes’ of
Health National Institute of Aging. Other
authors on the paper from Columbia
University Medical Center include Ming X.
Tang, Ph.D., Jennifer Manly, Ph.D., and
Howard Andrews, Ph.D.
The Department of Immunology at the New York
State Institute for Basic Research in
Developmental Disabilities, Staten Island,
New York, also contributed to this research.
An image of a brain tissue coated with
amyloid plaque is available upon request, as
is a copy of the PNAS paper.
The Taub Institute for Research on
Alzheimer’s Disease and the Aging Brain at
Columbia University Medical Center is a
multidisciplinary group that has forged
links between researchers and clinicians to
uncover the causes of Alzheimer’s,
Parkinson’s and other age-related brain
diseases and discover ways to prevent and
cure these diseases.
Taub neuroscientists partner with
researchers at the Gertrude H. Sergievsky
Center at Columbia University Medical
Center, which was established by an
endowment in 1977 to focus on diseases of
the nervous system.
The Sergievsky Center integrates traditional
epidemiology with genetic analysis and
clinical investigation to explore all phases
of diseases of the nervous system. For more
information about these CUMC centers visit:
http://www.cumc.columbia.edu/dept/taub/
or
http://www.cumc.columbia.edu/dept/sergievsky/.
Columbia University Medical Center provides
international leadership in basic,
pre-clinical and clinical research, in
medical and health sciences education, and
in patient care.
The medical center trains future leaders and
includes the dedicated work of many
physicians, scientists, public health
professionals, dentists, and nurses at the
College of Physicians & Surgeons, the
Mailman School of Public Health, the College
of Dental Medicine, the School of Nursing,
the biomedical departments of the Graduate
School of Arts and Sciences, and allied
research centers and institutions.
Established in 1767, Columbia's College of
Physicians & Surgeons was the first
institution in the country to grant the M.D.
degree and is among the most selective
medical schools in the country. Columbia
University Medical Center is home to the
largest medical research enterprise in New
York City and state and one of the largest
in the United States. For more information,
please visit
http://www.cumc.columbia.edu.
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