Cerebrospinal fluid lipidomic fingerprint of obstructive sleep apnoea in Alzheimer’s disease

BACKGROUND: Obstructive sleep apnoea (OSA) has a high prevalence in patients with Alzheimer’s disease (AD). Both conditions have been shown to be associated with lipid dysregulation. However, the relationship between OSA severity and alterations in lipid metabolism in the brains of patients with AD has yet to be fully elucidated. In this context, we examined the cerebrospinal fluid (CSF) lipidome of patients with suspected OSA to identify potential diagnostic biomarkers and to provide insights into the pathophysiological mechanisms underlying the effect of OSA on AD. METHODS: The study included 91 consecutive AD patients who underwent overnight polysomnography (PSG) to diagnose severe OSA (apnoea-hypopnea index ≥ 30/h). The next morning, CSF samples were collected and analysed by liquid chromatography coupled to mass spectrometry in an LC-ESI-QTOF-MS/MS platform. RESULTS: The CSF levels of 11 lipid species were significantly different between AD patients with (N = 38) and without (N = 58) severe OSA. Five lipids (including oxidized triglyceride OxTG(57:2) and four unknown lipids) were significantly correlated with specific PSG measures of OSA severity related to sleep fragmentation and hypoxemia. Our analyses revealed a 4-lipid signature (including oxidized ceramide OxCer(40:6) and three unknown lipids) that provided an accuracy of 0.80 (95% CI: 0.71–0.89) in the detection of severe OSA. These lipids increased the discriminative power of the STOP-Bang questionnaire in terms of the area under the curve (AUC) from 0.61 (0.50–0.74) to 0.85 (0.71–0.93). CONCLUSIONS: Our results reveal a CSF lipidomic fingerprint that allows the identification of AD patients with severe OSA. Our findings suggest that an increase in central nervous system lipoxidation may be the principal mechanism underlying the association between OSA and AD. SUPPLEMENTARY INFORMATION: The online version contains supplementary material available at 10.1186/s13195-023-01278-7.