MicroRNAs as diagnostic and therapeutic tools for Alzheimer’s disease: advances and limitations

Journal Article · Tue Jan 01 00:00:00 EST 2019 · Neural Regeneration Research

DOI:https://doi.org/10.4103/1673-5374.244784· OSTI ID:1628699

Martinez, Bridget ^[1]; Peplow, PhilipV ^[2]

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1. Univ. of California, Merced, CA, (United States). Dept. of Molecular & Cellular Biology; St. Georges Univ. School of Medicine, Grenada. Dept. of Medicine; Los Alamos National Lab, Los Alamos, NM, (United States). Dept. of Physics and Engineering; University Otago, New Zealand
2. Univ. of Otago, Dunedin, New Zealand. Dept. of Anatomy

Alzheimer’s disease (AD) is the most common age-related, progressive neurodegenerative disease. It is characterized by memory loss and cognitive decline and responsible for most cases of dementia in the elderly. Late-onset or sporadic AD accounts for > 95% of cases, with age at onset > 65 years. Currently there are no drugs or other therapeutic agents available to prevent or delay the progression of AD. The cellular and molecular changes occurring in the brains of individuals with AD include accumulation of β-amyloid peptide and hyperphosphorylated tau protein, decrease of acetylcholine neurotransmitter, inflammation, and oxidative stress. Aggregation of β-amyloid peptide in extracellular plaques and the hyperphosphorylated tau protein in intracellular neurofibrillary tangles are characteristic of AD. A major challenge is identifying molecular biomarkers of the early-stage AD in patients as most studies have been performed with blood or brain tissue samples (postmortem) at late-stage AD. Subjects with mild cognitive impairment almost always have the neuropathologic features of AD with about 50% of mild cognitive impairment patients progressing to AD. They could provide important information about AD pathomechanism and potentially also highlight minimally or noninvasive, easy-to-access biomarkers. MicroRNAs are dysregulated in AD, and may facilitate the early detection of the disease and potentially the continual monitoring of disease progression and allow therapeutic interventions to be evaluated. Four recent reviews have been published of microRNAs in AD, each of which identified areas of weakness or limitations in the reported studies. Importantly, studies in the last three years have shown considerable progress in overcoming some of these limitations and identifying specific microRNAs as biomarkers for AD and mild cognitive impairment. Further large-scale human studies are warranted with less disparity in the study populations, and using an appropriate method to validate the findings.

• Research Organization: Los Alamos National Lab. (LANL), Los Alamos, NM (United States)
• Sponsoring Organization: USDOE
• Grant/Contract Number: AC52-06NA25396
• OSTI ID: 1628699
• Journal Information: Neural Regeneration Research, Journal Name: Neural Regeneration Research Journal Issue: 2 Vol. 14; ISSN 1673-5374
• Publisher: Chinese Association of Rehabilitation Medicine (CARM)
• Country of Publication: United States
• Language: English

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