Abstract
Recent studies have suggested a protective role of physiological β-amyloid autoantibodies (Aβ-autoantibodies) in Alzheimer’s disease (AD). However, the determination of both free and dissociated Aβ-autoantibodies in serum hitherto has yielded inconsistent results regarding their function and possible biomarker value. Here we report the application of a new sandwich enzyme-linked immunosorbent assay (ELISA) for the determination of antigen-bound Aβ-autoantibodies (intact Aβ-IgG immune complexes) in serum and cerebrospinal fluid (CSF) of a total number of 112 AD patients and age- and gender-matched control subjects. Both serum and CSF levels of Aβ-IgG immune complexes were found to be significantly higher in AD patients compared to control subjects. Moreover, the levels of Aβ-IgG complexes were negatively correlated with the cognitive status across the groups, increasing with declining cognitive test performance of the subjects. Our results suggest a contribution of IgG-type autoantibodies to Aβ clearance in vivo and an increased immune response in AD, which may be associated with deficient Aβ-IgG removal. These findings may contribute to elucidating the role of Aβ-autoantibodies in AD pathophysiology and their potential application in AD diagnosis.
Highlights
Alzheimer’s disease (AD) is the most prevalent form of dementia among the aging population
Since there is no unique method for expressing enzyme-linked immunosorbent assay (ELISA) responses and arbitrary units are derived from absorbance readings, we considered it adequate to present the results of Ab-IgG determinations in serum and cerebrospinal fluid (CSF) as optical density (OD) values
In the following paragraphs we compare the levels of Ab-IgG immune complexes in serum and CSF samples from AD patients and age- and gender-matched control subjects
Summary
Alzheimer’s disease (AD) is the most prevalent form of dementia among the aging population. In AD patients, promising effects on cognition were observed in small pilot trials involving passive immunization with IVIg [20,23,27] These findings suggest that Ab-autoantibodies might exert a protective function against AD and could play an important role in AD treatment. We have employed the sandwich ELISA to determine the levels of Ab-IgG immune complexes in both serum and CSF of AD patients and age- and gender-matched control subjects and evaluated their correlations with the neuropsychological performance and age of the study participants, as well as their diagnostic power
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