Cerebrospinal fluid levels of YKL-40 in prodromal Alzheimer's disease

Recently, cerebrospinal fluid (CSF) YKL-40 levels were reported to be a promising candidate biomarker of glial inflammation in Alzheimer's disease (AD). To detect how APOE epsilon 4. affects CSF YKL-40 levels in cognitively normal (CN) states, mild cognitive impairment (MCI) and AD dementia, data from 35 CN subjects, 63 patients with MCI, and 11 patients with AD from a cross-sectional study in the Alzheimer's Disease Neuroimaging Initiative (ADNI) database were investigated. The results showed that CSF YKL-40 concentrations were increased in the AD dementia group than in the CN group. CSF YKL-40 levels were higher in APOE epsilon 4 carriers than in noncarriers with MCI. No statistically significant difference was found in CSF YKL-40 levels between APOE epsilon 4 carrier and noncarriers in AD and CN subjects. CSF YKL-40 concentrations were tightly related to CSF tau and p-tau concentrations in the MCI group. Analysis implied that APOE epsilon 4 might affect CSF YKL-40 levels in MCI subjects, suggesting a crucial role of APOE epsilon 4 in neuroinflammation in detecting individuals who might convert to AD from MCI and, thus, as an effective predictive factor.