The discriminative capacity of CSF β-amyloid 42 and Tau in neurodegenerative diseases in the Chinese population

Abstract

IntroductionIn the past few years, the β-amyloid 42 peptide and tau protein in cerebrospinal fluid (CSF) have become primary diagnostic biomarkers in differentiating Alzheimer's disease (AD) and cognitive normal controls. As we know, several neurodegenerative diseases have been reported to overlap with AD in neuropathology and clinical symptoms. To examine the discriminative utility of these biomarkers in AD and other neurodegenerative diseases, we measured them in a cohort of Chinese population. MethodsWe measured CSF Aβ42, t-tau and p-tau181 by ELISA tests and calculated the ratios of t-tau/Aβ42 and p-tau181/Aβ42 in 240 Chinese Han patients with AD (n = 82), frontotemporal dementia (FTD, n = 20), Huntington's disease (HD, n = 27), multiple system atrophy (MSA, n = 24), spinocerebellar ataxia type-3 (SCA3, n = 27), amyotrophic lateral sclerosis (ALS, n = 36) and controls (n = 24). ResultsAs expected, all biomarkers showed high discriminative capacity between AD and non-AD groups (p < .05) except for the elevated CSF t-tau in FTD (p > .05). Comparing with the controls, tau related biomarkers significantly elevated in the FTD (p < .001) and MSA (p < .05) groups. Surprisingly, comparing with controls, we found that CSF Aβ42 increased remarkably in the SCA3 (p < .05), HD and ALS groups (p < .001), achieving a high specificity, respectively. ConclusionTo our best knowledge, this is the first comprehensive study in the Han Chinese population that confirmed the discriminative utility of CSF Aβ42 and tau biomarkers between AD and other neurodegenerative diseases.