Comparison of potential plasma biomarkers in Alzheimer’s disease and neurodegenerative dementias in Pakistani population

Abstract

This study aimed to compare the mean plasma levels of Amyloid β42, Phosphorylated Tau and Neurofilament Light chain in patients diagnosed with Alzheimer’s Clinical Syndrome (ACS), and other neurodegenerative dementias to find affordable and less-invasive means of diagnosing Alzheimer’s disease (AD) early in its course. Blood samples of 36 subjects presenting with cognitive decline to the neurology OPDs of Dow and Civil hospitals, Karachi, were centrifuged, and plasma was stored at -80℃. Before analysis, it was thawed at 4℃ and protein levels were measured through ELISA. Two-thirds of the patients were females but age distribution across both the groups was not significantly different (p=0.21). No difference was observed in the mean plasma concentrations of Aβ42, P-Tau, and NFL between the two groups (p-values 0.78 and 0.27 and 0.09 respectively). Our study suggests that despite being promising in CSF, Aβ42, P-Tau, and NFL cannot differentiate between different neurodegenerative dementias when measured in plasma.