Brain, immune system and selenium: a starting point for a new diagnostic marker for Alzheimer’s disease?
The clinical diagnosis of Alzheimers disease (AD) is based primarily on neuropsychological tests, which assess the involutive damage, and imaging techniques that evaluate morphologic changes in the brain. The currently available diagnostic tests do not show complete specificity and do not permit an accurate differentiation between AD and other forms of senile dementia. The correlation of these tests with laboratory investigations based on biochemical parameters could increase the certainty of the diagnosis. In recent years, several biochemical markers for the diagnosis of AD have been proposed, but in most cases they show a limited specificity and their application is invasive, because it generally requires the sampling of cerebrospinal fluid. Therefore, the use of a peripheral biochemical marker could represent a valuable complement for the diagnosis of this disease.\n\nSeveral studies have shown a relationship between the neurodegenerative disorders typical of the ageing process, the weakening of the immune system, alterations in the levels of selenium and of the antioxidant selenoenzymes in brain tissues and blood cells, particularly in neutrophil granulocytes. The levels of peripheral selenoenzymes may reveal a promising clinical parameter for helping in the assessment of the pathological condition in AD.\n\nHighlightsMsrBl is one of the 25 selenoenzymes expressed in the humans\n\nMsrBl is highly expressed in human circulating neutrophils\n\nThe diagnostic markers for Alzheimers disease are still insufficiently validated\n\nThe impairment of some selenoenzymes is associated with Alzheimers disease\n\nNeutrophil MsrBl can be a peripheral marker for the diagnosis of Alzheimers disease