title: Phosphorylated tau in human cerebrospinal fluid is a diagnostic marker for Alzheimer's disease.
abstract: Microtubule-associated protein tau in cerebrospinal fluid (CSF) has been proposed as a diagnostic marker for Alzheimer's disease (AD), but there is overlap between AD patients and non-AD controls. To improve the diagnostic accuracy, we measured phosphorylated tau in CSF, because phosphorylated tau accumulates as pathological paired helical filaments in neurons of the AD brain. Immunoblot showed that CSF contained a 32 kDa N-terminal fragment of tau that was partially phosphorylated on Ser199, Thr231 and Ser235. A sandwich enzyme immunoassay revealed that phosphorylated CSF-tau levels were significantly higher in AD patients than those in non-AD controls. Discrimination between the two groups was clearer in phosphorylated CSF-tau than in total CSF-tau. The data indicate that elevated phosphorylated CSF-tau level is a more specific diagnostic marker for AD.
authors.affiliation: Mitsubishi Kasei Institute of Life Sciences, Machida, Japan. ishiko@libra.ls.m-kagaku.co.jp
authors.forename: K
authors.initials: K
authors.lastname: Ishiguro
authors.forename: H
authors.initials: H
authors.lastname: Ohno
authors.forename: H
authors.initials: H
authors.lastname: Arai
authors.forename: H
authors.initials: H
authors.lastname: Yamaguchi
authors.forename: K
authors.initials: K
authors.lastname: Urakami
authors.forename: J M
authors.initials: JM
authors.lastname: Park
authors.forename: K
authors.initials: K
authors.lastname: Sato
authors.forename: H
authors.initials: H
authors.lastname: Kohno
authors.forename: K
authors.initials: K
authors.lastname: Imahori
mesh_terms: D000544:Alzheimer Disease / Q000134:cerebrospinal fluid* / Q000175:diagnosis*; D015415:Biomarkers / Q000134:cerebrospinal fluid; D006801:Humans; D015151:Immunoblotting; D007124:Immunoenzyme Techniques; D010446:Peptide Fragments / Q000134:cerebrospinal fluid; D010766:Phosphorylation; D012016:Reference Values; D016875:tau Proteins / Q000134:cerebrospinal fluid* / Q000378:metabolism
chemical_list: D015415:Biomarkers; D010446:Peptide Fragments; D016875:tau Proteins