Assessing circular RNAs in Alzheimer's disease and frontotemporal lobar degeneration.

A circular-transcriptome-wide study has recently linked differential expression of circular RNAs (circRNAs) in brain tissue with Alzheimer's disease (AD). We aimed at replicating the major findings in an independent series of sporadic and familial AD. We also included cases with frontotemporal lobar degeneration (FTLD), comprising brain specimens with TDP-43 aggregates (FTLD-TDP43) and samples that presented Tau accumulation (FTLD-Tau).

Different pattern of CSF glial markers between dementia with Lewy bodies and Alzheimer's disease.

The role of innate immunity in dementia with Lewy bodies (DLB) has been little studied. We investigated the levels in cerebrospinal fluid (CSF) of glial proteins YKL-40, soluble TREM2 (sTREM2) and progranulin in DLB and their relationship with Alzheimer's disease (AD) biomarkers. We included patients with DLB (n = 37), prodromal DLB (prodDLB, n = 23), AD dementia (n = 50), prodromal AD (prodAD, n = 53), and cognitively normal subjects (CN, n = 44).

Nanoscale structure of amyloid-β plaques in Alzheimer's disease.

Soluble amyloid-β (Aβ) is considered to be a critical component in the pathogenesis of Alzheimer's disease (AD). Evidence suggests that these non-fibrillar Aβ assemblies are implicated in synaptic dysfunction, neurodegeneration and cell death. However, characterization of these species comes mainly from studies in cellular or animal models, and there is little data in intact human samples due to the lack of adequate optical microscopic resolution to study these small structures.