Cerebrospinal fluid lipidomics for biomarkers of Alzheimer's disease

Alzheimer's disease (AD) is the most common cause of dementia and is associated with serious neurologic sequelae resulting from neurodegenerative changes. Identification of markers of early-stage AD could be important for designing strategies to arrest the progression of the disease. The brain is rich in lipids because they are crucial for signal transduction and anchoring of membrane proteins. Cerebrospinal fluid (CSF) is an excellent specimen for studying the metabolism of lipids in AD because it can reflect changes occurring in the brain. We aimed to identify CSF lipidomic alterations associated with AD, using untargeted lipidomics, carried out in positive and negative ion modes. We found CSF lipids that were significantly altered in AD cases. In addition, comparison of CSF lipid profiles between persons with mild cognitive impairment (MCI) and AD showed a strong positive correlation between the lipidomes of the MCI and AD groups. The novel lipid biomarkers identified in this study are excellent candidates for validation in a larger set of patient samples and as predictive biomarkers of AD through future longitudinal studies. Once validated, the lipid biomarkers could lead to early detection, disease monitoring and the ability to measure the efficacy of potential therapeutic interventions in AD.