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. 2013 Sep 4;2(11):1119-24.
doi: 10.1242/bio.20135447. eCollection 2013.

CSF p-Tau levels in the prediction of Alzheimer's disease

Ramesh J L Kandimalla  1 , Sudesh Prabhakar, Willayat Yousuf Wani, Alka Kaushal, Nidhi Gupta, Deep Raj Sharma, V K Grover, Neerja Bhardwaj, Kajal Jain, Kiran Dip Gill
Affiliations

CSF p-Tau levels in the prediction of Alzheimer's disease

Ramesh J L Kandimalla et al. Biol Open. .

Abstract

The two hallmarks of Alzheimer's disease (AD) are neurofibrillary tangles and amyloid plaques. Neurofibrillary tangles are formed due to the hyperphosphorylation of tau protein. There is an urgent need to develop a reliable biomarker for the diagnosis of AD. Cerebrospinal fluid (CSF) is surrounding the brain and reflects the major neuropathological features in the AD brain. Diagnosis, disease progression and drug actions rely on the AD biomarkers. Mainly CSF tau and phosphorylated tau (p-Tau) have been observed to serve the purpose for early AD. Keeping in view the early appearance of p-Tau in CSF, we analyzed p-Tau levels in 23 AD, 23 Non AD type dementia (NAD), 23 Neurological control (NC) and 23 Healthy control (HC) North Indian patients. The levels of p-Tau were found to be increased in AD patients (67.87±18.05 pg/ml, SEM 3.76) compared with NAD (47.55±7.85 pg/ml, SEM 1.64), NC (34.42±4.51 pg/ml, SEM 0.94) and HC (27.09±7.18 pg/ml, SEM 1.50). The resulting sensitivity for AD with NAD was 80.27% whereas with respect to the NAD, NC and HC was 85.40%. Therefore elevated levels of p-Tau in AD can be exploited as a predictive biomarker in North Indian AD patients.

Keywords: Alzheimer's disease; North Indian patients; Sensitivity; p-Tau.

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Conflict of interest statement

Competing interests: The authors have no competing interests to declare.

Figures

Fig. 1.
Fig. 1.. CSF phospho tau in CSF of AD, NAD, NC and HC.
AD, 67.87±18.05 pg/ml; NAD, 47.55±7.85 pg/ml; NC, 34.42±4.51 pg/ml; HC, 27.09±7.18 pg/ml; P<0.0001.
Fig. 2.
Fig. 2.. ROC curve; specificity and sensitivity of AD with respect to the NAD, NC and HC.
Fig. 3.
Fig. 3.. ROC curve; specificity and sensitivity of AD with respect to the NAD.
Fig. 4.
Fig. 4.. ROC curve; specificity and sensitivity of AD with respect to the NAD and NC.
Fig. 5.
Fig. 5.. ROC curve; specificity and sensitivity of AD with respect to the NC.
Fig. 6.
Fig. 6.. ROC curve; specificity and sensitivity of AD with respect to NC and HC.
Fig. 7.
Fig. 7.. ROC curve; specificity and sensitivity of AD with respect to HC.
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