Investigação de biomarcadores diagnósticos para a doença de Alzheimer no líquido cefalorraquidiano, na saliva e na mucosa oral.

• Ano de defesa: 2012
• Autor(a) principal: Daniela Siqueira Veloso Starling
• Tipo de documento: Tese
• Tipo de acesso: Acesso aberto
• Idioma: por
• Instituição de defesa: Universidade Federal de Minas Gerais; UFMG
• Palavras-chave em Português: Neurociências; Alzheimer, Doença de; Marcadores biológicos
• Link de acesso: http://hdl.handle.net/1843/BUOS-8YNQSJ

The population is getting older and this is one of the greatest triumphs of humanity and one of our greatest challenges. In Brazil, the number of elderly (65 years old or older) increased from about five million in 1980 to approximately 10 million in 2000, and in 2030 this number could reach nearly 30 million (Brazilian Institute of Geography and Statistics - IBGE, 2008). These numbers predict the possibility of increasing the number of people affected by dementia. Dementia is a clinical syndrome characterized by cognitive impairment sufficient to produce functional impairment. The most common form of dementia is Alzheimer's disease (AD). Several studies have investigated biomarkers in other to differ AD and other degenerative dementia in early stages. In addition in order to get an early diagnosis, the use of biomarkers such as proteins beta-amyloid (A-42), Total-Tau (Tau-T) and phosphorylated tau (P-Tau), brings new information about the physiopathological mechanisms involved in the disease, allows to monitor the clinical course and contributes significantly to the development of new drugs and evaluation of its efficacy and safety. The aim of our study was to investigate the levels of Tau-T, P-tau and A-42 in cerebrospinal fluid (CSF), saliva and oral mucosa of patients with AD (n = 33), patients with non-AD dementia (OD, n = 22) and healthy control subjects (CT, n = 29), in order to identify additional biomarkers for the diagnosis of AD. It was observed that expression of A-42 protein in CSF of AD group was significantly increased compared to CT group. The same profile was found in the saliva. Analyzing T-Tau protein in CSF, we found that it showed no significant values when comparing the AD group with the OD and CT groups. The same results were observed in the saliva. We observed that P-Tau, had levels significantly elevated in the AD group compared with the OD group, only in CSF. By Western blot analyzes the expression of the proteins Tau-T and P-Tau obtained by the oral mucosa. Both the T-Tau and P-Tau showed significant increased in the AD group when compared to the CT group. The results suggest that A protein determination in saliva and analysis of protein expression and P-T Tau-Tau in the oral mucosa are promising diagnostic biomarkers for AD and, therefore, deserve to be investigated in future studies.