Prospective blood-based biomarkers of neurodegeneration

Neurodegenerative diseases disturb life quality of the elderly and often lead to progressive dementia. Neurodegenerative diseases, such as Alzheimer’s disease, need to be better understood, to be able to diagnose the patients earlier and eventually treat or prevent the diseases. Therefore, a cost-effective and accessible marker of ongoing neurodegeneration is needed. Three intermediate filaments, that may function as proxies for neurodegeneration, were studied. These proteins were measured from serum of patients diagnosed with neurodegenerative diseases using single-molecule array technology. Neurofilament light chain levels were higher in Alzheimer’s disease and mild cognitive impairment patients and the levels differed between patients with pathologic or non-pathologic levels of Alzheimer’s disease cerebrospinal fluid biomarkers amyloid beta 42, hyperphosphorylated tau and total tau. Glial fibrillary acidic protein and phosphorylated neurofilament heavy chain did not differ between the diagnoses or in groups of patients chosen according to their Alzheimer’s disease biomarker levels. Therefore, neurofilament light chain may in the future be used as a cost-effective marker of ongoing neurodegeneration. However, further studies are needed regarding biomarkers of neurodegeneration in patients.