MicroRNAs as Candidate Biomarkers for Alzheimer's Disease

Abstract

The neurological damage of Alzheimer's disease (AD) is thought to be irreversible upon onset of dementia-like symptoms, as it takes years to decades for occult pathologic changes to become symptomatic. It is thus necessary to identify individuals at risk for the development of the disease before symptoms manifest in order to provide early intervention. Surrogate markers are critical for early disease detection, stratification of patients in clinical trials, prediction of disease progression, evaluation of response to treatment, and also insight into pathomechanisms. Here, we review the evidence for a number of microRNAs that may serve as biomarkers with possible mechanistic insights into the AD pathophysiologic processes, years before the clinical manifestation of the disease.

Keywords: MCI; epigenetic dysregulation; plasma microRNAome.

Figure 1

Proposed approach toward discovering and evaluating circulating miRNA biomarker candidates for prognosing and diagnosing AD-associated cognitive decline.