Serum calreticulin is a negative biomarker in patients with Alzheimer’s disease

Abstract

Calreticulin is do regulated in the cortical neurons of patients with Alzheimer’s disease (AD)and may be a potential biomarker for the diagnosoif AD. A otal of 128 AD patients wererandomly recruited from May 2012to July 2013. The mRNA levels of calreticulin were measured from the serum of tested subjects using real-time quantitative reverse transcriptasP-CR (rea-time qRT-PCR). Serum levels of calreticulin were determined by ELISA and Western Blot. Serum levels of calreticulinin AD patients were significantly lower thtahnose from a healthy group (p < 0.01. The baseline characters indicated that sample size, gender, mean age, diabetes and BMI (body mass index) were notmajor sources of heterogeneity. The serumlevels of mRNA and protein of calreticulin were lower in AD patients than thofrom a healthy group, and negatively associated with the progression of AD according to CDR scores p < 0.01). Thus, there is a trend toward decreasedserum levels of calreticulin in the patients with progression of AD.Serum levels of calreticulin can be a negative biomarker for the diagnosis of AD patients.