Department of Toxicology and Bromatology, Faculty of Pharmacy, Collegium Medicum of Nicolaus Copernicus University, Bydgoszcz, Poland.
Department of Geriatrics, Faculty of Health Sciences, Collegium Medicum of Nicolaus Copernicus University, Bydgoszcz, Poland.
Amino Acids. 2021 Jan;53(1):97-109. doi: 10.1007/s00726-020-02928-y. Epub 2021 Jan 6.
Neurodegenerative disorders are one of the greatest global challenges for social and health care in the twenty-first century. Nowadays, determination of cerebrospinal fluid biomarkers for early diagnosis is served by a complex sample preparation procedure with limited diagnostic accuracy. Furthermore, neuroimaging methods are expensive, time-consuming and are not readily available for use as a complimentary and common screening method. Recently, researchers have shown an increased interest in the identification and characterization of new blood biomarkers of dementia to minimize the limitations associated with the current methods of biomarker determination. Amino acids play many important roles in the central nervous system, acting as neuromodulators, neurotransmitters and regulators of energy metabolism. The aim of this study was to evaluate if serum amino acid levels change along the continuum from no cognitive impairment to moderate dementia, and to identify putative biomarkers for early diagnosis of neurodegenerative diseases. Serum levels of 16 amino acids were determined in 3 groups of patients-22 with mild cognitive impairment, 45 with mild dementia and 28 with moderate dementia-by high-performance liquid chromatography (HPLC) with fluorescence detection using AccQ Tag column (Waters). The most exciting result is the significantly elevated concentration of arginine in patients with both stages of dementia as compared to mild cognitive impairment individuals. Recent accumulating evidence suggests the implication of changed arginine metabolism in the pathogenesis of neurodegenerative diseases. We conclude that amino acids profiling might be helpful in searching for biomarkers of neurogenerative diseases. In the present study, we discovered that arginine in plasma may have a putative diagnostic value for dementia.
神经退行性疾病是 21 世纪全球社会和医疗保健面临的最大挑战之一。如今，脑脊液生物标志物的测定用于早期诊断，需要进行复杂的样本制备程序，诊断准确性有限。此外，神经影像学方法昂贵、耗时，并且不容易作为补充和常规筛选方法使用。最近，研究人员对鉴定和描述新的痴呆症血液生物标志物表现出了浓厚的兴趣，以尽量减少与当前生物标志物测定方法相关的局限性。氨基酸在中枢神经系统中发挥着许多重要作用，作为神经调节剂、神经递质和能量代谢调节剂。本研究旨在评估血清氨基酸水平是否沿着从无认知障碍到中度痴呆的连续体发生变化，并确定用于神经退行性疾病早期诊断的潜在生物标志物。通过高效液相色谱法（HPLC）和荧光检测（Waters），使用 AccQ Tag 柱测定了 3 组患者的 16 种氨基酸水平，其中 22 名患者为轻度认知障碍，45 名患者为轻度痴呆，28 名患者为中度痴呆。最令人兴奋的结果是，与轻度认知障碍个体相比，处于痴呆两个阶段的患者的精氨酸浓度明显升高。最近的累积证据表明，精氨酸代谢的改变与神经退行性疾病的发病机制有关。我们得出结论，氨基酸谱分析可能有助于寻找神经退行性疾病的生物标志物。在本研究中，我们发现血浆中的精氨酸可能对痴呆具有潜在的诊断价值。
