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Alpha 1-antichymotrypsin may be a biomarker for the progression of amnestic mild cognitive impairment

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Abstract

Alpha 1-antichymotrypsin (ACT), an acute-phase protein, has been reported to be increased in the brain and blood of Alzheimer’s disease (AD) patients. However, few previous studies have focused on amnestic mild cognitive impairment (aMCI) patients. The aim of our study was to investigate the changing trend in ACT concentrations during the progression of aMCI. Hence, we measured the cerebrospinal fluid (CSF) and serum levels of ACT in aMCI subjects and normal controls (NC) at 2-year follow-up assessments using ELISA and Western blot. Forty-four NCs, 28 stable aMCI (sMCI) patients, and 20 progressive aMCI (pMCI) patients finished the follow-up assessments, and their data were used for analysis. We found that CSF and serum ACT levels of both sMCI and pMCI patients increased over time, while those of NCs remained stable; CSF and serum ACT levels were significantly higher in both sMCI and pMCI patients than in NCs, except for baseline serum ACT. In pMCI patients prior to developing AD, CSF and serum ACT levels were already significantly higher than those in sMCI patients. The ROC curve results demonstrated that combining CSF and serum ACT levels can distinguish aMCI patients from NCs with high specificity and sensitivity. Our data suggest that ACT may be a biomarker for diagnosing aMCI.

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Abbreviations

aMCI:

Amnestic mild cognitive impairment

AD:

Alzheimer’s disease

NC:

Normal control

ACT:

Alpha 1-antichymotrypsin

sMCI:

Stable amnestic mild cognitive impairment

pMCI:

Progressive amnestic mild cognitive impairment

Aβ:

Beta-amyloid

CSF:

Cerebrospinal fluid

MMSE:

Mini-mental state examination

CDR:

Clinical dementia rating

ANOVA:

Analysis of variance

BBB:

Blood–brain barrier

ROC:

Receiver-operating characteristic

AUC:

The area under the curve

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Acknowledgements

We thank all the subjects for participating in this study and the support by The Sixth Affiliated Hospital of Sun Yat-Sen University.

Funding

This study was financially supported by The Natural Science Foundation of Guangdong Province, China (No: Z20140701201710181).

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. Department of Neurology, The Sixth Affiliated Hospital of Sun Yat-Sen University, Guangzhou, 510655, China

    Shunjie Liu, Ke Tang, Qingfeng Lei, Lu He, Xiaodong Cai & Zhong Li

  2. Shenzhen Research Institute of Sun Yat-Sen University, Shenzhen, 518000, China

    Zhong Li

  3. Guangdong Provincial Key Laboratory of Brain Function and Disease, Guangzhou, 510080, China

    Zhong Li

  4. Department of Psychology, Sun Yat-Sen University, Guangzhou, 510006, China

    Junhao Pan

Authors
  1. Shunjie Liu
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  2. Junhao Pan
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Correspondence to Zhong Li.

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Ethical statement

The ethical committee of The Sixth Affiliated Hospital of Sun Yat-Sen University approved this study and all subjects gave their written informed consent in accord with established human subject research procedures expressed in Declaration of Helsinki.

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Liu, S., Pan, J., Tang, K. et al. Alpha 1-antichymotrypsin may be a biomarker for the progression of amnestic mild cognitive impairment. Acta Neurol Belg 121, 451–464 (2021). https://doi.org/10.1007/s13760-019-01206-3

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  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s13760-019-01206-3

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