Clinical and Diagnostic Laboratory Immunology, 07 1994, 433-436, Vol 1, No. 4
Copyright © 1994 by the American Society for Microbiology. All rights reserved.

Serum cytokine levels in patients with Alzheimer's disease

CC Chao, TA Ala, S Hu, KB Crossley, RE Sherman, PK Peterson and WH Frey 2nd
Neuroimmunobiology and Host Defense Laboratory, Minneapolis Medical Research Foundation, MN 55404, USA.

Alzheimer's disease (AD) has been proposed to be an inflammatory disorder. In a recent study, markedly elevated levels of the anti- inflammatory cytokine transforming growth factor beta (TGF-beta) in the serum and cerebrospinal fluid of patients with advanced AD suggested a potential predictive value of this cytokine in patients with AD. In the present prospective study, we tested the hypothesis that the levels of TGF-beta in serum would be increased in patients with AD and could thereby serve as a diagnostic marker. We found that serum TGF-beta levels but not proinflammatory cytokine levels were significantly (P < 0.05) elevated in patients with AD (n = 22) in comparison with the levels in their healthy spousal controls. Also, serum TGF-beta levels were positively correlated (r = 0.45; P < 0.05) with disease severity. Nevertheless, the elevation in serum TGF-beta levels in patients with Ad was modest, and considerable overlap with the control values suggests that the diagnostic usefulness of this cytokine for AD is limited.

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