Abstrakt
Many neurodegenerative diseases are defined by the aggregation and accumulation of the specific pathological protein in the CNS, leading to irreversible and fatal changes of the tissues. However, due to high clinical and epidemiological heterogeneity, a definitive ante-mortem diagnosis is very difficult to perform.
The definitive diagnosis is confirmed by neuropathological evaluation made only at autopsy. Hope for early and accurate laboratory diagnostics of these diseases within a patient's life represents methods based on the detection of seeding activity of pathological proteins.
An example is a highly specific and ultrasensitive new method called Real-Time Quaking-Induced Conversion (RT-QuIC) assay. Originally, RT-QuIC was developed for the diagnosis of prions showing 92-97% sensitivity and 100% specificity.
In our laboratory, we were able to detect prions in 39 brain samples, corresponding 24 cerebrospinal fluid samples, and in 38 skin samples of patients with Creutzfeldt-Jakob disease using RT-QuIC. Lately, the use of the RT-QuIC method for detection of pathological protein a-synuclein, which accumulates during Parkinson's disease or dementia with Lewy bodies, and tau protein which is characteristic for Alzheimer's disease or corticobasal degeneration, was described.
This review aims to elucidate the diagnosis of neurodegenerative diseases and its recent approaches using RT-QuIC.