Determinations of nasal biomarkers for dementia and development of a novel diagnostic method for Alzheimer's disease using nasal samples.

2015 Fiscal Year Final Research Report

• Project/Area Number: 26640042
• Research Category: Grant-in-Aid for Challenging Exploratory Research
• Allocation Type: Multi-year Fund
• Research Field: Neurochemistry/Neuropharmacology
• Research Institution: Shiga University of Medical Science
• Principal Investigator: Tooyama Ikuo 滋賀医科大学, 分子神経科学研究センター, 教授 (20207533)
• Co-Investigator(Kenkyū-buntansha): Akatsu Hiroyasu 名古屋市立大学, 医学研究科, 特任教授 (00399734) ; Inoue Koichi 立命館大学, 薬学部, 准教授 (30339519) ; Shimizu Shino 滋賀医科大学, 医学部, 医員 (50505592)
• Co-Investigator(Renkei-kenkyūsha): Michikawa Makoto 名古屋市立大学, 医学部, 教授 (40270912) ; Matsukawa Noriyuki 名古屋市立大学, 医学部, 教授 (20305543)
• Project Period (FY): 2014-04-01 – 2016-03-31
• Keywords: 脳神経疾患 / アルツハイマー病 / 認知症 / 診断 / 鼻粘膜

Outline of Final Research Achievements

We investigated the nasal mucosa of postmortem human samples, and found that β-amyloid peptides (Aβ), tau protein and phosphorylated tau protein were localized in human nasal mucosa. We could mesure contents of total tau and phosphorylated tau proteins in human nasal smears using commercial ELISA kits. But, it is difficult to measure Aβ content in human nasal smears. In this study, we developed a novel and sensitive method of measuring Aβ42 in the human nasal cavity and its application in normal human volunteers. We collected nasal smears by cotton swab from the mucosa of the inferior nasal concha and common nasal meatus of 26 normal volunteers with an age range of 23-78 years. Our novel enabled us to measure Aβ42 content in both the inferior nasal concha and the common nasal meatus of all cases examined, despite the levels being under detection limits (0.1 pmol/L) without our methods.

Free Research Field

神経科学