Searching for novel cerebrospinal fluid biomarkers of tau pathology in frontotemporal dementia: An elusive quest
Research output: Contribution to journal › Article
Abstract
Background Frontotemporal dementia (FTD) is a pathologically heterogeneous neurodegenerative disorder associated usually with tau or TDP-43 pathology, although some phenotypes such as logopenic variant primary progressive aphasia are more commonly associated with Alzheimer's disease pathology. Currently, there are no biomarkers able to diagnose the underlying pathology during life. In this study, we aimed to investigate the potential of novel tau species within cerebrospinal fluid (CSF) as biomarkers for tau pathology in FTD. Methods 86 participants were included: 66 with a clinical diagnosis within the FTD spectrum and 20 healthy controls. Immunoassays targeting tau fragments N-123, N-mid-region, N-224 and X-368, as well as a non-phosphorylated form of tau were measured in CSF, along with total-tau (T-tau) and phospho-tau (P-tau (181)). Patients with FTD were grouped based on their Aβ 42 level into those likely to have underlying Alzheimer's disease (AD) pathology (n=21) and those with likely frontotemporal lobar degeneration (FTLD) pathology (n=45). The FTLD group was then subgrouped based on their underlying clinical and genetic diagnoses into those with likely tau (n=7) or TDP-43 (n=18) pathology. Results Significantly higher concentrations of tau N-mid-region, tau N-224 and non-phosphorylated tau were seen in both the AD group and FTLD group compared with controls. However, none of the novel tau species showed a significant difference between the AD and FTLD groups, nor between the TDP-43 and tau pathology groups. In a subanalysis, normalising for total-tau, none of the novel tau species provided a higher sensitivity and specificity to distinguish between tau and TDP-43 pathology than P-tau (181) /T-tau, which itself only had a sensitivity of 61.1% and specificity of 85.7% with a cut-off of <0.109. Conclusions Despite investigating multiple novel CSF tau fragments, none show promise as an FTD biomarker and so the quest for in vivo markers of FTLD-tau pathology continues.
Details
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External organisations |
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Research areas and keywords | Subject classification (UKÄ) – MANDATORY
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Original language | English |
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Pages (from-to) | 740-746 |
Number of pages | 7 |
Journal | Journal of Neurology, Neurosurgery and Psychiatry |
Volume | 90 |
Issue number | 7 |
Publication status | Published - 2019 Jul 1 |
Publication category | Research |
Peer-reviewed | Yes |
Externally published | Yes |