1. Association of tear fluid amyloid and tau levels with disease severity and neurodegeneration.
- Author
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Gijs, Marlies, Ramakers, Inez H. G. B., Visser, Pieter Jelle, Verhey, Frans R. J., van de Waarenburg, Marjo P. H., Schalkwijk, Casper G., Nuijts, Rudy M. M. A., and Webers, Carroll A. B.
- Subjects
COGNITION disorders ,NEURODEGENERATION ,MILD cognitive impairment ,AMYLOID ,ALZHEIMER'S disease - Abstract
There has been increasing interest in finding non-invasive biomarkers for neurodegenerative diseases such as Alzheimer's disease (AD). This observational study investigated AD-specific biomarkers in tear fluid. Tear fluid was collected from a total of 65 subjects, including 23 patients with subjective cognitive decline (SCD), 22 patients with mild cognitive impairment (MCI), 11 dementia patients and 9 healthy controls (HC). Levels of amyloid-beta peptides (AB38, AB40, AB42), total-tau (t-tau) and phosphorylated-tau (p-tau) were determined using multiplex immunoassays. Levels of AB40 and t-tau were detectable in the vast majority (> 94%) of tear fluid samples. Cerebrospinal fluid (CSF) was available from a subset of patients. In this group, tear t-tau levels were significantly higher in people with dementia compared to SCD patients. Tear t-tau levels were elevated in patients with neurodegeneration (classified according to the A/T/N system) compared to patients without neurodegeneration. Negative correlations were found between CSF AB42 and CSF t-tau, and between CSF AB42 and tear t-tau. In summary, this study shows the potential of tau proteins in tear fluid to be associated with disease severity and neurodegeneration. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]
- Published
- 2021
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