Elsevier

Neuroscience Letters

Volume 225, Issue 3, 11 April 1997, Pages 210-212
Neuroscience Letters

Elevated levels of tau-protein in cerebrospinal fluid of patients with Creutzfeldt–Jakob disease

https://doi.org/10.1016/S0304-3940(97)00215-2Get rights and content

Abstract

Creutzfeldt–Jakob disease (CJD) is a rare, fatal, neurodegenerative disease caused by a transmissible agent designated as proteinaceous infectious agent (prion). Searching for biochemical markers of CJD, we analysed cerebrospinal fluid (CSF) samples of 53 patients for tau-protein using an enzyme linked immunoassay (ELISA). In a group of 21 patients with definite CJD seen in the German case control study for CJD, tau-protein concentrations in CSF were significantly higher than in two control-groups of patients with other diseases (median 13153 pg/ml, range 1533–27648 pg/ml; P=0.0001). One control group comprised 19 patients who were seen in the same study and were diagnosed as having other dementing diseases (tau concentration: median 558 pg/ml, range 233–1769 pg/ml). The second control group comprised 13 patients from our hospital with no dementing disease (tau concentration: median 296 pg/ml, range 109–640 pg/ml). We conclude that determination of tau protein levels in CSF is a useful marker for laboratory diagnosis of CJD.

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Acknowledgements

This study was partly supported by a grant from the Bundesministerium für Gesundheit to HAK and SP (324-4473-05/3). We gratefully acknowledge the site visiting physicians S. Räcker, S. Grosche, K. Weidehaas and M. Bodemer for technical assistance. We thank Annette Pfahlberg (M.Sc., Department of Medical Statistics, Goettingen) for calculating the confidence intervals. We thank all physicians notifying suspect cases to the German CJD surveillance unit, for providing pertinent clinical,

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