title: Can Antibodies Against Glial Derived Antigens be Early Biomarkers of Hippocampal Demyelination and Memory Loss in Alzheimer's Disease?
abstract: BACKGROUND
  Alzheimer's disease (AD) is known to exhibit well characterized pathologies including the extracellular accumulation of amyloid plaques, intra-axonal presence of neurofibrillary tangles, and glial hypertrophy. Nevertheless, the nature of myelin pathology in AD has not been well studied. Recent studies on animal models of AD, however, revealed focal demyelination within amyloid-β plaques in hippocampus.
  
  
  OBJECTIVE
  In a view of this finding, we decided to assess humoral response against proteins of myelin sheath in AD, in the hope of identifying early biomarkers of memory loss and neuropathological process characteristic of AD.
  
  
  METHODS
  We assessed antibodies levels against proteins of the myelin sheath: myelin oligodendrocyte glycoprotein (MOG), myelin basic protein (MBP), myelin-associated glycoprotein (MAG), and proteolipoprotein (PLP) in sera of 26 AD patients and 26 healthy controls, using commercially available ELISA system (Mediagnost, Germany).
  
  
  RESULTS
  In the AD patient subgroup, significantly higher titers were observed for all types of assessed IgG autoantibodies compared to healthy control subjects (anti-MOG, anti-MAG, anti-MBP, anti-PLP). The titers of most of the investigated IgM antibodies were also higher in AD patients (p <  0.05), with the exception of anti-MAG IgM antibodies (p >  0.05).
  
  
  CONCLUSIONS
  The study provides the evidence for the significantly increased production of autoantibodies against proteins of myelin sheath in AD. These results can be of importance in the light of emerging data from animal models of AD, indicating early demyelination of hippocampal region. Further studies on larger population are necessary to confirm whether these autoantibodies could serve as early biomarkers of AD in humans.
authors.affiliation: Chair and Department, Neurology of Medical University of Lublin, Poland.
authors.forename: Ewa
authors.initials: E
authors.lastname: Papuć
authors.affiliation: 2nd Department of Radiology, Medical University of Lublin, Poland.
authors.forename: Ewa
authors.initials: E
authors.lastname: Kurys-Denis
authors.affiliation: 2nd Department of Radiology, Medical University of Lublin, Poland.
authors.forename: Witold
authors.initials: W
authors.lastname: Krupski
authors.affiliation: 2nd Department of Radiology, Medical University of Lublin, Poland.|Department of Animal Physiology, University of Life Sciences, Lublin, Poland.
authors.forename: Marcin
authors.initials: M
authors.lastname: Tatara
authors.affiliation: Chair and Department, Neurology of Medical University of Lublin, Poland.
authors.forename: Konrad
authors.initials: K
authors.lastname: Rejdak
mesh_terms: D000368:Aged; D000369:Aged, 80 and over; D000544:Alzheimer Disease / Q000150:complications; D000906:Antibodies / Q000378:metabolism*; D015415:Biomarkers / Q000378:metabolism; D020278:Demyelinating Autoimmune Diseases, CNS / Q000209:etiology* / Q000473:pathology*; D005260:Female; D006624:Hippocampus / Q000378:metabolism*; D006801:Humans; D008297:Male; D008569:Memory Disorders / Q000209:etiology / Q000473:pathology*; D009185:Myelin Proteins / Q000276:immunology*; D009483:Neuropsychological Tests; D011569:Psychiatric Status Rating Scales; D018709:Statistics, Nonparametric
chemical_list: D000906:Antibodies; D015415:Biomarkers; D009185:Myelin Proteins
keywords: Alzheimer’s disease; autoantibodies; glial cells; humoral response; immune system; oligodendrocytes