Affiliations: [a] Department of Psychology, University of North Texas, Denton, TX, USA | [b] Department of Psychiatry, University of North Texas Health Science Center, Fort Worth, TX, USA | [c] Institute for Aging & Alzheimer’s Disease Research, University of North Texas Health Science Center, Fort Worth, TX, USA | [d] University of Texas Southwestern Medical Center, Department of Neurology and Neurotherapeutics, Dallas, TX, USA | [e] Department of Internal Medicine, University of North Texas Health Science Center, Fort Worth, TX, USA
Correspondence:
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Correspondence to: Sid E. O’Bryant, PhD, University of North Texas, Health Sciences Center, Department of Internal Medicine, 3500 Camp Bowie Blvd, Fort Worth, 76107, Texas, USA. Tel.: +1 817 735 2961; E-mail: Sid.O’Bryant@unthsc.edu
Abstract: Background:Mexican Americans face a significant health disparity when it comes to Alzheimer’s disease (AD) as they present with higher rates of the disease and develop AD at an earlier age compared to other ethnic groups. Recent work identified a proteomic profile of AD among this population; however, no work to date has sought to examine the biological profile of pre-AD among Mexican Americans. Objective:This study aims to identify an amnestic mild cognitive impairment (aMCI) proteomic profile among Mexican Americans. Methods:Data were analyzed from 284 Mexican American participants (aMCI, n = 73; normal controls, n = 211) from the Health & Aging Brain among Latino Elders study. Fasting serum samples were analyzed using a multi-plex biomarker assay platform. A biomarker profile was generated using random forest analyses. Results:Among aMCI cases, the biomarker profile was found to be largely inflammatory with the top three markers shown to include TNFα, IL10, and TARC. The overall diagnostic accuracy of the biomarkers in detecting aMCI was 96% (sensitivity = 0.82; specificity = 0.97). Inclusion of clinical variables with the selected biomarkers did not impact the overall detection accuracy (area under the curve = 0.96) but led to a slight improvement in specificity (specificity = 0.99) and decrease in sensitivity (sensitivity = 0.74). Conclusion:The biomarker profile of aMCI was shown to be different from our previously generated AD profile among Mexican Americans, which was largely metabolic in nature. The findings implicate a possible interplay between inflammatory and metabolic processes and additional work is needed to further examine this.
