Evaluation of cerebrospinal fluid glycoprotein NMB (GPNMB) as a potential biomarker for Alzheimer’s disease

BACKGROUND: Alzheimer’s disease (AD) is a neurodegenerative disorder associated with extracellular amyloid-β peptide deposition and progressive neuron loss. Strong evidence supports that neuroinflammatory changes such as the activation of astrocytes and microglia cells are important in the disease process. Glycoprotein nonmetastatic melanoma protein B (GPNMB) is a transmembrane glycoprotein that has recently been associated with an emerging role in neuroinflammation, which has been reported to be increased in post-mortem brain samples from AD and Parkinson’s disease patients. METHODS: The present study describes the partial “fit for purpose” validation of a commercially available immunoassay for the determination of GPNMB levels in the cerebrospinal fluid (CSF). We further assessed the applicability of GPNMB as a potential biomarker for AD in two different cohorts that were defined by biomarker-supported clinical diagnosis or by neuroimaging with amyloid positron emission tomography, respectively. RESULTS: The results indicated that CSF GPNMB levels could not distinguish between AD or controls with other neurological diseases but correlated with other parameters such as aging and CSF pTau levels. CONCLUSIONS: The findings of this study do not support GPNMB in CSF as a valuable neurochemical diagnostic biomarker of AD but warrant further studies employing healthy control individuals. SUPPLEMENTARY INFORMATION: The online version contains supplementary material available at 10.1186/s13195-021-00828-1.