Advances in blood-based protein biomarkers for Alzheimer's disease

Alzheimer's disease (AD) is a neurodegenerative disorder that accounts for the majority of dementia cases. While research over the past decades has made advances into understanding disease pathology, definite AD diagnosis currently relies on confirmation by autopsy. The anticipated dramatic rise in affected individuals over the next decades necessitates the development of diagnostic tests applicable to living individuals, which depends on identification of disease biomarkers. Diagnostics based on blood protein biomarkers are particularly desired since these would allow for economical, rapid and non-invasive analysis of individual biomarker profiles. Research is actively ongoing in this field and has led to the identification of autoantibodies and various proteins in the blood that may represent a disease-specific blood signature of AD. This review provides an overview on the progress in the field of identification of AD-specific blood protein biomarkers.