An miRNA Fingerprint Using Neural-Enriched Extracellular Vesicles from Blood Plasma: Towards a Biomarker for Amyotrophic Lateral Sclerosis/Motor Neuron Disease
Posted by Adam Awdish on
Single Donor Human Plasma (Blood Derived) from Innovative Research was used in the following study:
Sandra Anne Banack, Rachael Anne Dunlop and Paul Alan Cox
The Royal Society Publishing
May 22, 2020
Neurodegenerative diseases such as Alzheimer’s disease (AD), Parkinson’s disease (PD) and amyotrophic lateral sclerosis/motor neuron disease (ALS/MND) continue to provide challenges for diagnosis since validated diagnostic biomarkers are currently unavailable. Rapid diagnosis and intervention in the disease process could be beneficial in slowing neurodegenerative disease progression as well as facilitating the testing of new therapies. For patients with ALS/MND, the average time from diagnosis to death is typically between 2–5 years, and it is not unusual for patients to wait a year before receiving a diagnosis.
Since disease progression correlates with motor neuron loss, early intervention could be critical for the development of new effective drug therapies. Currently, there are no known reliable biomarkers for ALS/ MND diagnosis or analysis of disease progression. If identified, biomarkers could improve patient outcomes by enabling early intervention and assist in the determination of treatment efficacy.
In this study, researchers hypothesized that neural-enriched extracellular vesicles could provide microRNA (miRNA) fingerprints with unequivocal signatures of neurodegeneration. Using blood plasma from ALS/MND patients and controls, scientists extracted neural-enriched extracellular vesicle fractions and conducted next-generation sequencing and qPCR of miRNA components of the transcriptome.
The researchers were able to identify eight miRNA sequences which significantly distinguish ALS/MND patients from controls in a replicated experiment using a second cohort of patients and controls. miRNA sequences from patient blood samples using neural-enriched extracellular vesicles may yield unique insights into mechanisms of neurodegeneration and assist in early diagnosis of ALS/MND.
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