Whole Blood MiR-29a/101 As A Biomarker For Diagnosis Of Alzheimer’s Disease

Background:The prevalence of Alzheimer’s disease(AD) increases year by year, however, the only treatment is to delay the progress of cognitive impairment. Therefore, the early diagnosis of AD tends to be rather crucial. Micro RNAs(mi RNAs) may control gene expression at the posttranscriptional level and associate with neurodegenerative disease, including AD. We detected the mi RNAs in peripheral whole blood inorder to confirm the differential expression in AD patients and heathy olders, and then explore the potential contribution of mi RNAs to the diagnosis of AD.Methods: Peripheral blood samples were obtained from 108 probable AD patients and 99 age- and gender-matched normal controls. The concentrations of seven candidate mi RNAs, including mi R-9,mi R-29 a, mi R-29 b, mi R-101, mi R-181 c, mi R-137 and mi R-126, were measured with a real-time quantitative reverse transcriptase polymerase chain reaction(q RT-PCR) method. The data of two groups were collected and analyzed with SPSS 19.0 software.Results: We found mi R-29a(P=1.12×10-5) and mi R-101(P=6.24×10-7) were markedly down-regulated in peripheral blood of AD patients compared with normal controls. Among the receiver operating characteristic(ROC) results, mi R-29 a showed its priority with a sensitivity of80.5% and a specificity of 72.6%, while mi R-101 showd 80.8% and 71.4%. However, Logistic regression analysis revealed mi R-29a/101 combination could be a potential biomarker of AD with better sensitivity and specificity(82.0%/75.0%).Conclusions: mi R-29 a and mi R-101 in peripheral whole blood, down-regulated remarkably, may serve as noninvasive diagnostic biomarkers for AD. Furthermore, mi R-29a/101 combination may be more useful for its better sensitivity and specificity.