Skip to main page content
U.S. flag

An official website of the United States government

Dot gov

The .gov means it’s official.
Federal government websites often end in .gov or .mil. Before sharing sensitive information, make sure you’re on a federal government site.

Https

The site is secure.
The https:// ensures that you are connecting to the official website and that any information you provide is encrypted and transmitted securely.

Access keys NCBI Homepage MyNCBI Homepage Main Content Main Navigation
. 2017 Jan 1:636:254-257.
doi: 10.1016/j.neulet.2016.11.023. Epub 2016 Nov 13.

Cognitive ability in Down syndrome and its relationship to urinary neopterin, a marker of activated cellular immunity

Panagiotis Zis  1 , André Strydom  2 , David Buckley  3 , Daniel Adekitan  3 , Patrick C McHugh  3
Affiliations

Cognitive ability in Down syndrome and its relationship to urinary neopterin, a marker of activated cellular immunity

Panagiotis Zis et al. Neurosci Lett. .

Abstract

Background: Neopterin is an unconjugated pteridine that is secreted in large quantities by activated macrophages and can be used as a clinical marker of activated cellular immunity and oxidative stress. We aimed to investigate whether urinary neopterin levels are associated with cognitive function in people with Down syndrome (DS).

Methods: Out of 32 adults with DS who originally participated in a longitudinal study, 25 were followed up at 4 years. Informants rated their adaptive behavior (ABAS) and the adults with DS attempted assessments of language skills and memory at both baseline and follow-up time points (Modified Memory Object Task, MOMT), and receptive vocabulary (British Picture Vocabulary Scale, BPVS).

Results: Neopterin/creatinine levels were negatively correlated with change in the MOMT total score (Spearman's Rho=-0.517, p=0.020) and change in the MOMT delayed recall score (Spearman's Rho=-0.577, p=0.008) over time, i.e. higher neopterin/creatinine level was associated with worse performance on a test of cognitive ability over time.

Conclusion: Urine neopterin may have potential as a biomarker for memory decline in Down syndrome, and could potentially also help to track progression of mild cognitive impairment (MCI) to Alzheimer's disease in other high risk populations.

Keywords: Aging; Alzheimer’s disease; Down syndrome; Memory; Neopterin; Oxidative stress.

PubMed Disclaimer

References

    1. Patten DA, Germain M, Kelly MA, Slack RS. Reactive oxygen species: stuck in the middle of neurodegeneration. J Alzheimers Dis. 2010;20(2):S357–S367. - PubMed
    1. Bennett S, Grant MM, Aldred S. Oxidative stress in vascular dementia and Alzheimer’s disease: A common pathology. J Alzheimers Dis. 2009;17:245–257. - PubMed
    1. Ansari MA, Scheff SW. Oxidative stress in the progressionof Alzheimer disease in the frontal cortex. J Neuropathol Exp Neurol. 2010;69:155–167. - PMC - PubMed
    1. Wiseman FK, Al-Janabi T, Hardy J, Karmiloff-Smith A, Nizetic D, Tybulewicz VL, Fisher EM, Strydom A. A genetic cause of Alzheimer disease: mechanistic insights from Down syndrome. Nat Rev Neurosci. 2015 Sep;16(9):564–74. - PMC - PubMed
    1. Roizen NJ, Patterson D. Down’s syndrome. Lancet. 2003;361:1281–1289. - PubMed

Publication types