Translational Psychiatry (Nov 2021)

Plasma phosphorylated-tau181 as a predictive biomarker for Alzheimer’s amyloid, tau and FDG PET status

  • Xue-Ning Shen,
  • Yu-Yuan Huang,
  • Shi-Dong Chen,
  • Yu Guo,
  • Lan Tan,
  • Qiang Dong,
  • Jin-Tai Yu,
  • Alzheimer’s Disease Neuroimaging Initiative

DOI
https://doi.org/10.1038/s41398-021-01709-9
Journal volume & issue
Vol. 11, no. 1
pp. 1 – 10

Abstract

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Abstract Plasma phosphorylated-tau181 (p-tau181) showed the potential for Alzheimer’s diagnosis and prognosis, but its role in detecting cerebral pathologies is unclear. We aimed to evaluate whether it could serve as a marker for Alzheimer’s pathology in the brain. A total of 1189 participants with plasma p-tau181 and PET data of amyloid, tau or FDG PET were included from ADNI. Cross-sectional relationships of plasma p-tau181 with PET biomarkers were tested. Longitudinally, we further investigated whether different p-tau181 levels at baseline predicted different progression of Alzheimer’s pathological changes in the brain. We found plasma p-tau181 significantly correlated with brain amyloid (Spearman ρ = 0.45, P 18.85 pg/ml) at baseline had a higher risk of pathological progression in brain amyloid (HR: 2.32, 95%CI 1.32–4.08) and FDG PET (3.21, 95%CI 2.06–5.01) status. Plasma p-tau181 may be a sensitive screening test for detecting brain pathologies, and serve as a predictive biomarker for Alzheimer’s pathophysiology.