Plasma Lipocalin 2 in Alzheimer’s disease: potential utility in the differential diagnosis and relationship with other biomarkers

Abstract

Background Lipocalin-2 is a glycoprotein that is involved in various physiological and pathophysiological processes. In the brain, it is expressed in response to vascular and other brain injury, as well as in Alzheimer’s disease in reactive microglia and astrocytes. Plasma Lipocalin-2 has been proposed as a biomarker for Alzheimer’s disease but available data is scarce and inconsistent. Thus, we evaluated plasma Lipocalin-2 in the context of Alzheimer’s disease, differential diagnoses, other biomarkers, and clinical data. Methods For this two-center case-control study, we analyzed Lipocalin-2 concentrations in plasma samples from a cohort of n = 407 individuals. The diagnostic groups comprised Alzheimer’s disease (n = 74), vascular dementia (n = 28), other important differential diagnoses (n = 221), and healthy controls (n = 84). Main results were validated in an independent cohort with patients with Alzheimer’s disease (n = 19), mild cognitive impairment (n = 27), and healthy individuals (n = 28). Results Plasma Lipocalin-2 was significantly lower in Alzheimer’s disease compared to healthy controls (p < 0.001) and all other groups (p < 0.01) except for mixed dementia (vascular and Alzheimer’s pathologic changes). Areas under the curve from receiver operation characteristics for the discrimination of Alzheimer’s disease and healthy controls were 0.783 (95%CI: 0.712–0.855) in the study cohort and 0.766 (95%CI: 0.627–0.905) in the validation cohort. The area under the curve for Alzheimer’s disease versus vascular dementia was 0.778 (95%CI: 0.667–0.890) in the study cohort. In Alzheimer’s disease patients, plasma Lipocalin2 did not show significant correlation with cerebrospinal fluid biomarkers of neurodegeneration and AD-related pathology (total-tau, phosphorylated tau protein, and beta-amyloid 1-42), cognitive status (Mini Mental Status Examination scores), APOE genotype, or presence of white matter hyperintensities. Interestingly, Lipocalin 2 was lower in patients with rapid disease course compared to patients with non-rapidly progressive Alzheimer’s disease (p = 0.013). Conclusions Plasma Lipocalin-2 has potential as a diagnostic biomarker for Alzheimer’s disease and seems to be independent from currently employed biomarkers.

Review on the neuron damage parameters in patients with end-stage renal disease

“…Patients with ESRD who had cognitive impairment had marginally higher plasma NFL concentrations. NFL concentration was not correlated with the biochemical parameters ESRD impacts plasma NFL levels and their accuracy in reflecting neurodegeneration [93].…”

Fluid biomarkers of the neurovascular unit in cerebrovascular disease and vascular cognitive disorders: A systematic review and meta-analysis

“…S100B is not normally present in the peripheral circulation but is released following stroke and has been commonly implicated in brain injury. Elevated levels of serum GFAP have been found in ischemic stroke [93] and intracranial haemorrhage e [65] with lipocalin-2 increased in the blood of VaD [94] and AD patients [95] . Though activated astrocytes have been reported to contribute to the breakdown of the BBB [96] , the exact pathogenic mechanisms involving lipocalin-2 and its diagnostic capability in cognitive impairment is unclear.…”

“…There are only a limited number of studies investigating biomarkers of SVD and cognitive impairment. Out of these studies, vWF [ 67 , [72] , [73] , [74] ], NSE [105] , NfL [ 88 , [105] , [106] , [107] ], S100β [ 91 , 108 ] and Lipocalin-2 [ 94 , 95 ] appeared to be the most robust biomarkers across studies .…”