Alzheimer's disease CSF biomarkers correlate with early pathology and alterations in neuronal and glial gene expression

Introduction: Normal pressure hydrocephalus (NPH) patients undergoing cortical shunting frequently show early AD pathology on cortical biopsy, which is predictive of progression to clinical AD. The objective of this study was to use samples from this cohort to identify CSF biomarkers for AD-related CNS pathophysiologic changes using tissue and fluids with early pathology, free of post-mortem artifact.

Methods: We analyzed Simoa, proteomic, and metabolomic CSF data from 81 patients with previously documented pathologic and transcriptomic changes.

Results: AD pathology on biopsy correlates with CSF β-amyloid-40/42, neurofilament light chain (NfL), and phospho-tau-181(p-tau181)/β-amyloid-42, while several gene expression modules correlate with NfL. Proteomic analysis highlights 7 core proteins that correlate with pathology and gene expression changes on biopsy, and metabolomic analysis of CSF identifies disease-relevant groups that correlate with biopsy data..

Discussion: As additional biomarkers are added to AD diagnostic panels, our work provides insight into the CNS pathophysiology these markers are tracking.