Abstract
Determining a non-invasive, serum-based diagnostic panel for early diagnosis of Alzheimer’s disease (AD) will play a significant role in the prevention and treatment of AD. The emerging role of extracellular vesicles (EVs) in intercellular communication has stimulated renewed interest in exploring the potential application of EVs as tools for early diagnosis in AD. We retrospectively identified 2 diagnostic groups of 50 individuals, 25 AD and 25 were healthy controls. Plasma neuron-derived extracellular vesicles (NDEVs) were isolated, characterization and high throughput analysis were conducted. ROC curve analysis was used to determine the performance of the EVs biomarkers and diagnosis models. In the screening of significantly different proteins, the expression change (FC) > 2.0 times (up-regulated greater than 2.0 times or down-regulated less than 0.5 times) and P value < 0.05 (T-test) were used as criteria to obtain the up-regulated and down-regulated EVs proteins between comparison groups. In this study, 8 EVs protein biomarkers were screened, including Fibrinogen-like protein 1 (FGL1), Glucosidase 2 subunit beta (PRKCSH), Phosphatidylinositol 5-phosphate 4-kinase type-2 alpha (PIP4K2A), cDNA FLJ78516 (FLJ78516), Ras GTPase-activating protein 3 (RASA3), Nck-associated protein 1 (NCKAP1), Hematopoietic progenitor cell antigen CD34 (CD34), and Angiopoietin-1 (ANGPT1). Among them, FGL1, PRKCSH and PIP4K2A are up-regulated EVs biomarkers, and the other 5 are down-regulated ones. Our study developed an approach including of EVs protein biomarkers, that could be used to distinguish AD from control candidates, thus providing an additional approach that can be used to complement classical diagnosis methods.