You are here

  • Home
  • Archive
  • Volume 81, Issue 6
  • Differential levels of α-synuclein, β-amyloid42 and tau in CSF between patients with dementia with Lewy bodies and Alzheimer's disease

Article Text

Article menu
Download PDFPDF
Research paper
Differential levels of α-synuclein, β-amyloid42 and tau in CSF between patients with dementia with Lewy bodies and Alzheimer's disease
  1. Kensaku Kasuga1,2,
  2. Takayoshi Tokutake1,2,
  3. Atsushi Ishikawa3,
  4. Tsuyoshi Uchiyama4,
  5. Takahiko Tokuda5,
  6. Osamu Onodera1,
  7. Masatoyo Nishizawa2,
  8. Takeshi Ikeuchi1
  1. 1Department of Molecular Neuroscience, Brain Research Institute, Niigata University, Niigata, Japan
  2. 2Department of Neurology, Brain Research Institute, Niigata University, Niigata, Japan
  3. 3Department of Neurology, Brain Disease Centre Agano Hospital, Agano, Japan
  4. 4Department of Neurology, Seirei Hamamatsu Hospital, Hamamatsu, Japan
  5. 5Department of Neurology, Kyoto Prefectural University of Medicine, Kyoto, Japan
  1. Correspondence to Dr T Ikeuchi, Department of Molecular Neuroscience, Brain Research Institute, Niigata University, Asahimachi 1-757, Chuo-ku, Niigata 951-8585, Japan; ikeuchi{at}bri.niigata-u.ac.jp

Abstract

Background The clinical diagnosis of dementia with Lewy bodies (DLB) is made on the basis of consensus criteria; however, the sensitivity of the criteria is relatively low. There are no generally accepted biomarkers to distinguish DLB from other dementias. Here the utility of quantification of α-synuclein, β-amyloid42 (Aβ42) and tau in the CSF of patients with DLB, Alzheimer's disease (AD) and other dementias was examined.

Methods 86 patients were divided into three age and sex matched groups: DLB (n=34), AD (n=31) and other dementias (n=21). Two patients with α-synuclein gene (SNCA) duplication were also examined. Aβ and tau were quantified using an ELISA kit. A modified sandwich ELISA was developed which enables the sensitive quantification of CSF α-synuclein.

Results Total and phosphorylated tau levels as well as Aβ40/42 and tau/Aβ42 ratios were significantly higher in AD patients than in patients with DLB (p<0.01) and other dementias (p<0.01). CSF α-synuclein levels in DLB patients were significantly lower than those in patients with AD (p<0.05) and other dementias (p<0.01). CSF α-synuclein level correlated with the Aβ42 level in DLB patients (p=0.01, r=0.43). Two patients with SNCA duplication exhibited relatively low levels of CSF α-synuclein.

Conclusions The study suggests that reduced levels of CSF α-synuclein in DLB may reflect the accumulation of α-synuclein with Lewy pathology in the brain and that quantification of CSF α-synuclein helps in the differentiation of DLB from AD and other dementias in combination with Aβ42 and tau analysis.

https://doi.org/10.1136/jnnp.2009.197483

Statistics from Altmetric.com

    Request Permissions

    If you wish to reuse any or all of this article please use the link below which will take you to the Copyright Clearance Center’s RightsLink service. You will be able to get a quick price and instant permission to reuse the content in many different ways.

    View Full Text

    Footnotes

    • Linked articles 206391.

    • Funding This study was supported by a Grant-in-Aid for Scientific Research (21200041) from the MEXT, Japan and the Mochida Memorial Foundation for Medical and Pharmaceutical Research.

    • Competing interests None.

    • Patient consent Obtained.

    • Ethics approval This study was conducted with the approval of the ethics committee of Niigata University School of Medicine.

    • Provenance and peer review Not commissioned; externally peer reviewed.

    Linked Articles