Dementia Proteomics

The term dementia encompass a number of conditions arising as a consequence of tissue degeneration in the brain. This degeneration is caused by molecular events occurring on a cellular level including inflammation, defective waste disposal and accumulation of insoluble proteins and peptides. Many of these molecular events are in turn also reflected in the composition of the cerebrospinal fluid (CSF) which circulates within and around the brain. This thesis summarise five studies conducted with the aim to explore and profile CSF proteins in the context of dementia and other neurodegenerative disorders. Protein profiles were obtained by so-called suspension bead arrays (SBAs), created by coupling antibodies to color-coded microspheres, allowing detection of more than 350 CSF proteins simultaneously. The majority of the explored proteins are referred to as brain-enriched, entailing that the corresponding genes are highly expressed in brain tissue in comparison to other tissues. In Paper I, the SBA technology was utilised to profile about 280 proteins in CSF from several neurodegenerative disorders, i.e. Alzheimer’s disease (AD), dementia with Lewy Bodies and Parkinson’s disease. Distinct differences in the CSF proteome were identified depending on site of collection (ventricular or lumbar) and time point (post mortem or ante mortem). Disease-associated profiles for the two synaptic proteins neuromodulin (GAP43) and neurogranin (NRGN) could be confirmed, in which both proteins displayed higher levels in AD compared to controls. High levels of the two proteins were furthermore observed in patients at preclinical stages of AD in two independent cohorts. To verify the identified protein profiles, parallel reaction monitoring (PRM) assays were developed for 17 proteins in Paper II, including GAP43. Eight proteins displayed concordance to data generated with SBAs and among these were GAP43, cholecystokinin, neurofilament medium chain (NF-M), leucine-rich alpha-2-glycoprotein and vascular cell adhesion protein 1. In Paper ...