Alzheimer’s disease: Blood serum circulating microRNAs as diagnostic biomarkers

Abstract

AbstractBackgroundAlzheimer’s disease (AD) is the most common age‐related dementia. One of its biggest challenges is identifying signature molecular expressions that would detect it before the clinical symptoms manifest. With advances in technology related to next generation sequencing (NGS) of microRNAs, several avenues are being explored that may enable the identification of a unique diagnostic marker for early‐stage ADMethodThe main goal was to investigate the expression of a select group of miRNAs circulating in blood serum of AD patients in search of diagnostic markers for Alzheimer’s disease. Two select blood plasma miRNAs were profiled using miRCURY LNA miRNA qPCR serum array on five AD samples.ResultResults showed that the two target sequences hsa‐miR‐181b‐3p and hsa‐miR‐21p were present in the AD samples with an increased adjusted expression (miR‐181b Ct = 29 and miR‐21p Ct = 27 respectively) compared to normal controls (xCt = 31).ConclusionThese outcomes suggest that aberrant expression of plasma miRNA has potential to be used to assess AD and that next generation sequencing technologies can be used as a viable tool for enhancing AD diagnosis.