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
Review
. 2019 Mar 28;12(1):26.
doi: 10.1186/s13041-019-0448-1.

Blood-based molecular biomarkers for Alzheimer's disease

Henrik Zetterberg  1   2   3   4 , Samantha C Burnham  5   6
Affiliations
Review

Blood-based molecular biomarkers for Alzheimer's disease

Henrik Zetterberg et al. Mol Brain. .

Abstract

A major barrier to the effective conduct of clinical trials of new drug candidates against Alzheimer's disease (AD) and to identifying patients for receiving future disease-modifying treatments is the limited capacity of the current health system to find and diagnose patients with early AD pathology. This may be related in part to the limited capacity of the current health systems to select those people likely to have AD pathology in order to confirm the diagnosis with available cerebrospinal fluid and imaging biomarkers at memory clinics. In the current narrative review, we summarize the literature on candidate blood tests for AD that could be implemented in primary care settings and used for the effective identification of individuals at increased risk of AD pathology, who could be referred for potential inclusion in clinical trials or future approved treatments following additional testing. We give an updated account of blood-based candidate biomarkers and biomarker panels for AD-related brain changes. Our analysis centres on biomarker candidates that have been replicated in more than one study and discusses the need of further studies to achieve the goal of a primary care-based screening algorithm for AD.

Keywords: Alzheimer’s disease; Amyloid; Biomarkers; Blood; Plasma; Serum; Tau.

PubMed Disclaimer

Conflict of interest statement

Ethics approval and consent to participate

Not applicable.

Consent for publication

Not applicable.

Competing interests

HZ has served at scientific advisory boards for Roche Diagnostics, Wave, Samumed and CogRx and is one of the founders of Brain Biomarker Solutions in Gothenburg AB, a GU Ventures-based platform company at the University of Gothenburg. SB reports no disclosures.

Publisher’s Note

Springer Nature remains neutral with regard to jurisdictional claims in published maps and institutional affiliations.

References

    1. Calderon-Garciduenas AL, Duyckaerts C. Alzheimer disease. Handb Clin Neurol. 2017;145:325–337. - PubMed
    1. Cohen AD, Landau SM, Snitz BE, Klunk WE, Blennow K, Zetterberg H. Fluid and PET biomarkers for amyloid pathology in Alzheimer's disease. Mol Cell Neurosci. 2018. - PubMed
    1. Scholl M, Maass A, Mattsson N, Ashton NJ, Blennow K, Zetterberg H, Jagust W. Biomarkers for tau pathology. Mol Cell Neurosci. 2018. - PMC - PubMed
    1. Olsson B, Lautner R, Andreasson U, Ohrfelt A, Portelius E, Bjerke M, Holtta M, Rosen C, Olsson C, Strobel G, et al. CSF and blood biomarkers for the diagnosis of Alzheimer's disease: a systematic review and meta-analysis. Lancet Neurol. 2016;15(7):673–684. - PubMed
    1. Zetterberg H, Mortberg E, Song L, Chang L, Provuncher GK, Patel PP, Ferrell E, Fournier DR, Kan CW, Campbell TG, et al. Hypoxia due to cardiac arrest induces a time-dependent increase in serum amyloid beta levels in humans. PLoS One. 2011;6(12):e28263. - PMC - PubMed

Publication types