1. Cognitive Decline and Alzheimer's Disease in Old Age: A Sex-Specific Cytokinome Signature.
- Author
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Boccardi V, Paolacci L, Remondini D, Giampieri E, Poli G, Curti N, Cecchetti R, Villa A, Ruggiero C, Brancorsini S, and Mecocci P
- Subjects
- Aged, Aged, 80 and over, Aging, Alzheimer Disease diagnosis, Biomarkers blood, Case-Control Studies, Cognitive Dysfunction diagnosis, Cross-Sectional Studies, Female, Humans, Male, Alzheimer Disease blood, Chemokines blood, Cognitive Dysfunction blood, Cytokines blood, Sex Characteristics
- Abstract
Background: Elevated peripheral levels of different cytokines and chemokines in subjects with Alzheimer's disease (AD), as compared with healthy controls (HC), have emphasized the role of inflammation in such a disease. Considering the cross-talking between the central nervous system and the periphery, the inflammatory analytes may provide utility as biomarkers to identify AD at earlier stages., Objective: Using an advanced statistical approach, we can discriminate the interactive network of cytokines/chemokines and propose a useful tool to follow the progression and evolution of AD, also in light of sex differences., Methods: A cohort of 289 old-age subjects was screened for cytokine and chemokine profiling, measured in plasma, after a thorough clinical and neuropsychological evaluation. A custom algorithm based on Fisher linear discriminant analysis was applied to ascertain a classification signature able to discriminate HC from mild cognitive impairment (MCI) and AD., Results: We observed that a joint expression of three proteins (a "signature" composed by IFN-α2, IL-1α, TNFα) can discriminate HC from AD with an accuracy of 65.24%. Using this signature on MCI samples, 84.93% of them were classified as "non-HC". Stratifying MCI samples by sex, we observed that 87.23% of women were classified as "non-HC", and only 57.69% of males. Indeed, in a scatter plot of IFN-α2 and IL-1α, the HC group was better separated from MCI and AD in women as compared with men., Conclusion: These findings suggest that AD is accompanied by a peripheral inflammatory response that can already be present in MCI subjects, thus providing a mean for detecting this at-risk status and allow an anticipated intervention.
- Published
- 2019
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