The level of Alzheimer-associated neuronal thread protein in urine may be an important biomarker of mild cognitive impairment

Increased levels of Alzheimer-associated neuronal thread protein (AD7c-NTP) are often detected in urine in the early course of Alzheimer’s disease (AD), which makes it a promising biomarker for AD. However, whether the concentration of urinary AD7c-NTP is increased in patients with mild cognitive impairment (MCI) remains unclear. The aim of this study was to explore the value of urinary AD7c-NTP to assist in the diagnosis of cognitive impairment by comparing differences in urinary AD7c-NTP among normal controls, MCI patients and AD patients. One hundred and seventy patients from the Xuan wu Hospital, Capital Medical University were divided into three groups according to their clinical diagnosis: an AD group (n = 45), an MCI group (n = 60) and a normal group (n = 65). The Mini Mental State Examination and the Montreal Cognitive Assessment scale were used to screen for the diagnosis of AD and MCI, and patients met the diagnostic criteria of the National Institute of Neurological Disorders and Stroke and the Alzheimer’s Disease and Related Disorders Association. The level of urinary AD7c-NTP was determined using the enzyme-linked immunosorbent assay method. The urinary levels of AD7c-NTP in the AD group (median 2.14 [range 0.49–6.39] ng/ml) and the MCI group (median 1.57 [range 0.4–4.15] ng/ml) were significantly higher than those of the normal group (median 0.53 [range 0.04–2.07] ng/ml). To our knowledge our study is the first to show that the level of urinary AD7c-NTP in MCI patients is higher than in healthy people, which suggests that the level of urinary AD7c-NTP may be an important biomarker for early diagnosis of MCI.