TY - JOUR
AU - Utz, Janine
AU - Berner, Judith
AU - Muñoz, Luis Enrique
AU - Oberstein, Timo Jan
AU - Kornhuber, Johannes
AU - Herrmann, Martin
AU - Maler, Juan Manuel
AU - Spitzer, Philipp
PY - 2021
M3 - Brief Research Report
TI - Cerebrospinal Fluid of Patients With Alzheimer’s Disease Contains Increased Percentages of Synaptophysin-Bearing Microvesicles
JO - Frontiers in Aging Neuroscience
UR - https://www.frontiersin.org/articles/10.3389/fnagi.2021.682115
VL - 13
SN - 1663-4365
N2 - IntroductionIn Alzheimer’s disease, the severity of symptoms is linked to a loss of synaptic density and the spread of pathologically hyperphosphorylated tau. The established cerebrospinal fluid markers Aβ, tau and phospho-tau reflect the histopathological hallmarks of Alzheimer’s disease but do not indicate disease progression. Such markers are of special interest, especially for trials of disease modifying drugs. Microvesicles are produced by stressed cells and reflect part of the metabolism of their cells of origin. Therefore, we investigated microvesicles of neuronal origin in cerebrospinal fluid.Materials and MethodsWe used flow cytometry to analyze microvesicles carrying tau, phospho-tau-Thr181, phospho-tau-Ser202Thr205, synaptophysin, and SNAP-25 in the cerebrospinal fluid of 19 patients with Alzheimer’s disease and 15 non-inflammatory neurological disease controls.ResultsThe percentages of synaptophysin-bearing microvesicles were significantly higher in the cerebrospinal fluid of patients with Alzheimer’s disease than in the CSF of non-inflammatory neurological disease controls. Tau, phospho-tau-Thr181, phospho-tau-Ser202Thr205, and SNAP-25 did not differ between the groups. The percentages of synaptophysin-bearing vesicles distinguished patients with Alzheimer’s disease from the controls (AUC = 0.81).ConclusionThe loss of synapses in Alzheimer’s disease may be reflected by synaptophysin-bearing microvesicles in the cerebrospinal fluid. Future studies are needed to investigate the possibility of using these MVs as a marker to determine the activity of Alzheimer’s disease.
ER -