Phosphorylated Alpha-Synuclein in Red Blood Cells as a Potential Diagnostic Biomarker for Multiple System Atrophy: A Pilot Study.

In this study, levels of serine 129-phosphorylated α-syn (pS-α-syn), a major pathologic form of α-syn, in red blood cells (RBCs), were measured using ELISA in a Chinese cohort consisting of 107 MSA patients and 220 healthy controls. A significant increase in the levels of pS-α-syn in RBCs (pS-α-syn-RBC) was observed in MSA patients than in healthy controls (14.02 ± 4.02 ng/mg versus 11.89 ± 3.57 ng/mg; p < 0.0001). Receiver operating characteristic curve (ROC) indicated that pS-α-syn-RBC discriminated the patients well from the controls with a sensitivity of 80.37% (95% confidence interval (CI): 71.58%-87.42%), a specificity of 88.64% (95% CI: 83.68%-92.51%), and an area under the curve (AUC) of 0.91 (95% CI: 0.87-0.94). The levels of pS-α-syn-RBC were negatively correlated with RBD-HK scores and differed between MSA-P and MSA-C subtypes (13.27 ± 1.91 versus 12.19 ± 3.04; p=0.025). The difference between subtypes was seen at Hoehn and Yahr stages 3 and 4, and the age at onset (AAO) between 60 and 69 years (p=0.016). The results suggest that pS-α-syn-RBC is increased in MSA patients and can be used as a potential diagnostic biomarker for MSA. PMID: 32089817 [PubMed]
Source: Parkinsons Disease - Category: Neurology Tags: Parkinsons Dis Source Type: research