FTIR Spectroscopy - A Potential Tool to Identify Metabolic Changes in Dementia Patients

Abstract

Alzheimer’s Disease (AD) diagnosis frequently relies on patient’s\rcognitive evaluation deficits and exclusion criteria often implemented\rin advanced stages of dementia, when it is too late for effective\rtherapeutic intervention. In order to improve early AD diagnosis\rand therapeutic interventions, novel approaches for AD biomarker\ridentification and validation need to be developed. These comprise\rmetabolomics based strategies, including Fourier Transform Infrared\rSpectroscopy (FTIR) that has gained increasing attention in the clinical\rdiagnostics field.\rThe present work aims to contribute to identify the main\rmetabolic changes that occur during neurodegeneration, by\rmonitoring plasma biochemical alterations that can aid in\rdementia/cognitive impairment diagnosis, through FTIR analysis.\rPrincipal Component Analysis (PCA) was applied to spectral\rdata (45 plasma samples) at 3 specific regions: 3500-2700 cm-1,\r1700-1400 cm-1 and 1200-900 cm-1. Plasma samples from\rcognitive impaired individuals exhibit the presence of higher content\rof saturated lipids, carboxylic acids, reactive carbonyls, and other\rmolecules related to oxidative stress (ROS and NOS species),\rand protein modifications. Taken together the data obtained in this\rpreliminary work strongly supports that FTIR has potential in\rdiagnosing cognitive impairment, identification of disease states and\rmay prove to also be of prognostic value.