A possible blood plasma biomarker for early-stage Alzheimer’s disease

by Sandra Anne Banack, Aleksandra C. Stark, Paul Alan Cox

We sought to identify a usable biomarker from blood samples to characterize early-stage Alzheimer’s disease (AD) patients, in order to facilitate rapid diagnosis, early therapeutic intervention, and monitoring of clinical trials. We compared metabolites from blood plasma in early-stage Alzheimer’s disease patients with blood plasma from healthy controls using two different analytical platforms: Amino Acid Analyzer and Tandem Mass-Spectrometer. Early-stage Alzheimer’s patient blood samples were obtained during an FDA-approved Phase IIa clinical trial (Clinicaltrial.gov NCT03062449). Participants included 25 early-stage Alzheimer’s patients and 25 healthy controls in the United States. We measured concentrations of 2-aminoethyl dihydrogen phosphate and taurine in blood plasma samples. We found that plasma concentrations of a phospholipid metabolite, 2-aminoethyl dihydrogen phosphate, normalized by taurine concentrations, distinguish blood samples of patients with early-stage AD. This possible new Alzheimer’s biomarker may supplement clinical diagnosis for early detection of the disease.