Published in

Nature Research, Scientific Reports, 1(9), 2019

DOI: 10.1038/s41598-018-37431-8

Links

Tools

Export citation

Search in Google Scholar

Pattern of Altered Plasma Elemental Phosphorus, Calcium, Zinc, and Iron in Alzheimer’s Disease

This paper is made freely available by the publisher.
This paper is made freely available by the publisher.

Full text: Download

Green circle
Preprint: archiving allowed
Red circle
Postprint: archiving forbidden
Green circle
Published version: archiving allowed
Data provided by SHERPA/RoMEO

Abstract

AbstractMetal/mineral dyshomeostasis has been implicated in the development of Alzheimer’s disease (AD). The aim of the study was to investigate the difference in absolute and percentage levels of plasma phosphorus, calcium, iron, zinc, copper, selenium in cognitively normal (CN) and AD subjects. Total reflection X-ray fluorescence (TXRF) spectroscopy was used to detect plasma metals/minerals in CN and AD subjects (n = 44 per group). TXRF detected significantly increased plasma levels of phosphorus (p = 1.33 × 10−12) and calcium (p = 0.025) in AD compared to CN subjects, with higher phosphorus/calcium (p = 2.55 × 10−14) ratio in the former. Percentage concentrations calculated for phosphorus, calcium, iron, zinc, copper, selenium by dividing the concentration of each element by the total concentration of these elements and multiplying by 100%, demonstrated phosphorus was higher in AD compared to CN subjects, while calcium, iron, zinc, copper and selenium were lower in AD subjects, with area under the curves as high as 0.937 (p = 6 × 10−5) computed from receiver operating curves. With exclusion of high levels of phosphorus and calcium from percentage calculations, iron levels remained low in AD whereas zinc was higher in AD, and copper and selenium levels were similar. We demonstrate altered distribution of elements in the plasma of AD subjects with high interdependencies between elemental levels and propose the potential of TXRF measurements for disease monitoring.