New Blood Test Accurately Predicts Alzheimer’s Years Ahead of First Symptoms

A new type of blood test can spot a hidden toxin behind Alzheimer’s illness years before a patient shows memory loss or confusion symptoms.

Suppose the proof-of-concept can be further tested and scaled. In that case, the test might significantly speed up diagnosis, providing countless patients answers and access to proper care long before their illness progresses.

Researchers at the College of Washington (UW) created the novel blood test. It’s designed to pick up on a molecular precursor in the blood that can cause proteins to irregularly fold and clump in the brain, ultimately forming amyloid beta (Aβ) plaques.

Aβ plaques are a famous hallmark of Alzheimer’s disease, but their role in cognitive decline is uncertain. Historically, these extracellular plaques have been considered an early trigger of neuron dysfunction and loss, ultimately leading to cognitive decline.

However, recent researches have shown that Aβ plaques are just present in a 3rd of Alzheimer’s patients, and sometimes, they are present in the brains of people who experience no cognitive deficits.

In other words, extracellular Aβ plaques in the brain aren’t necessarily toxic in and of themselves, but they may stem from notoriously difficult-to-detect molecular toxins.

These toxins are essentially the functional versions of the Aβ found within cells. They are known as ‘toxic Aβ oligomers’, and some researchers believe they might subtly damage neurons from afar, somehow predisposing the cells to extracellular plaques and clumps.

Scientists are still figuring out the details, but the hypothesis has led UW researchers to make an impressively accurate soluble oligomer binding assay, nicknamed SOBA.

Researchers initially evaluated SOBA on 310 individuals’ blood plasma. Some participants revealed light cognitive disability or Alzheimer’s condition, while others were in good cognitive health and wellness.

By measuring toxic Aβ oligomers in the blood plasma, SOBA picked out all 53 participants with Alzheimer’s who were later confirmed to have the illness post-mortem.

On the other hand, in the control group, SOBA detected oligomers in the blood plasma examples of 11 people. 10 of these participants were later diagnosed with mild cognitive impairment or Alzheimer’s.

” What clinicians and scientists have wanted is a reliable diagnostic test for Alzheimer’s illness– and not simply an assay that confirms a diagnosis of Alzheimer’s, but one that can also detect signs of the illness before cognitive impairment happens,” says bioengineer Valerie Daggett from UW.

” That’s important for people’s health and all the study into how toxic oligomers of amyloid beta go on and cause the damage they do. We reveal that SOBA might be the basis of such a test.”

And that’s not all SOBA can do. After all, Alzheimer’s isn’t the only disease marked by toxic oligomers.

Misfolding proteins also appear to be associated with Parkinson’s disease, type II diabetes, and Lewy body dementia, which means SOBA might one day be tweaked to get early markers of these other illnesses.

Other tests have also attempted to measure for markers of Alzheimer’s, however, with varying levels of success.

In 2018, for instance, a blood analysis that likewise detects Aβ precursors predicted the onset of Alzheimer’s up to 30 years before the cognitive deficits also began to show.

SOBA, scientists say, can make similar predictions.

In current clinical practice, only blood tests that measure for genes associated with Alzheimer’s are in use. Still, these tests are not as good at predicting who will go on to actually develop the disease.

With tests like SOBA performing so well, that could be on the brink of changing.

Read the original article on Science Alert.

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