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Plasma phosphorylated-tau181 as a predictive biomarker for Alzheimer's amyloid, tau and FDG PET status
Journal article   Open access   Peer reviewed

Plasma phosphorylated-tau181 as a predictive biomarker for Alzheimer's amyloid, tau and FDG PET status

Xue-Ning Shen, Yu-Yuan Huang, Shi-Dong Chen, Yu Guo, Lan Tan, Qiang Dong, Jin-Tai Yu and Alzheimer’s Disease Neuroimaging Initiative
Translational psychiatry, Vol.11(1), pp.585-585
11/13/2021
DOI: 10.1038/s41398-021-01709-9
PMCID: PMC8590691
PMID: 34775468
url
https://doi.org/10.1038/s41398-021-01709-9View
Published (Version of record) Open Access

Abstract

Plasma phosphorylated-tau181 (p-tau181) showed the potential for Alzheimer's diagnosis and prognosis, but its role in detecting cerebral pathologies is unclear. We aimed to evaluate whether it could serve as a marker for Alzheimer's pathology in the brain. A total of 1189 participants with plasma p-tau181 and PET data of amyloid, tau or FDG PET were included from ADNI. Cross-sectional relationships of plasma p-tau181 with PET biomarkers were tested. Longitudinally, we further investigated whether different p-tau181 levels at baseline predicted different progression of Alzheimer's pathological changes in the brain. We found plasma p-tau181 significantly correlated with brain amyloid (Spearman ρ = 0.45, P < 0.0001), tau (0.25, P = 0.0003), and FDG PET uptakes (-0.37, P < 0.0001), and increased along the Alzheimer's continuum. Individually, plasma p-tau181 could detect abnormal amyloid, tau pathologies and hypometabolism in the brain, similar with or even better than clinical indicators. The diagnostic accuracy of plasma p-tau181 elevated significantly when combined with clinical information (AUC = 0.814 for amyloid PET, 0.773 for tau PET, and 0.708 for FDG PET). Relationships of plasma p-tau181 with brain pathologies were partly or entirely mediated by the corresponding CSF biomarkers. Besides, individuals with abnormal plasma p-tau181 level (>18.85 pg/ml) at baseline had a higher risk of pathological progression in brain amyloid (HR: 2.32, 95%CI 1.32-4.08) and FDG PET (3.21, 95%CI 2.06-5.01) status. Plasma p-tau181 may be a sensitive screening test for detecting brain pathologies, and serve as a predictive biomarker for Alzheimer's pathophysiology.
Biomarkers Alzheimer Disease - diagnostic imaging Amyloid beta-Peptides Fluorodeoxyglucose F18 Humans tau Proteins

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