Decreased salivary lactoferrin levels are specific to Alzheimer's disease
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Date
2020-07Author
González Sánchez, Marta
Bartolomé, Fernando
Antequera, Desirée
Puertas Martín, Verónica
González, Pilar
Gómez Grande, Adolfo
Llamas Velasco, Sara
Herrero San Martín, Alejandro
Pérez Martínez, David
Villarejo Galende, Alberto
Atienza, Mercedes
Palomar Bonete, Miriam
Cantero, José Luis
Perry, George
Orive Arroyo, Gorka
Ibáñez, Borja
Bueno, Héctor
Fuster, Valentín
Carro, Eva
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EBioMedicine 57 : (2020) // Article ID 102834
Abstract
Background: Evidences of infectious pathogens in Alzheimer's disease (AD) brains may suggest a deteriorated innate immune system in AD pathophysiology. We previously demonstrated reduced salivary lactoferrin (Lf) levels, one of the major antimicrobial proteins, in AD patients.
Methods: To assess the clinical utility of salivary Lf for AD diagnosis, we examine the relationship between salivary Lf and cerebral amyloid-beta (A beta) load using amyloid-Positron-Emission Tomography (PET) neuroimaging, in two different cross-sectional cohorts including patients with different neurodegenerative disorders.
Findings: The diagnostic performance of salivary Lf in the cohort 1 had an area under the curve [AUC] of 0.95 (0.911-0.992) for the differentiation of the prodromal AD/AD group positive for amyloid-PET (PET+) versus healthy group, and 0.97 (0.924-1) versus the frontotemporal dementia (FTD) group. In the cohort 2, salivary Lf had also an excellent diagnostic performance in the health control group versus prodromal AD comparison: AUC 0.93 (0.876-0.989). Salivary Lf detected prodromal AD and AD dementia distinguishing them from FTD with over 87% sensitivity and 91% specificity.
Interpretation: Salivary Lf seems to have a very good diagnostic performance to detect AD. Our findings support the possible utility of salivary Lf as a new non-invasive and cost-effective AD biomarker.