PLoS ONE (Jan 2014)

Elevation of peripheral BDNF promoter methylation links to the risk of Alzheimer's disease.

  • Lan Chang,
  • Yunliang Wang,
  • Huihui Ji,
  • Dongjun Dai,
  • Xuting Xu,
  • Danjie Jiang,
  • Qingxiao Hong,
  • Huadan Ye,
  • Xiaonan Zhang,
  • Xiaohui Zhou,
  • Yu Liu,
  • Jinfeng Li,
  • Zhongming Chen,
  • Ying Li,
  • Dongsheng Zhou,
  • Renjie Zhuo,
  • Yuzheng Zhang,
  • Honglei Yin,
  • Congcong Mao,
  • Shiwei Duan,
  • Qinwen Wang

DOI
https://doi.org/10.1371/journal.pone.0110773
Journal volume & issue
Vol. 9, no. 11
p. e110773

Abstract

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Brain derived neurotrophic factor (BDNF) has been known to play an important role in various mental disorders or diseases such as Alzheimer's disease (AD). The aim of our study was to assess whether BDNF promoter methylation in peripheral blood was able to predict the risk of AD. A total of 44 AD patients and 62 age- and gender-matched controls were recruited in the current case-control study. Using the bisulphite pyrosequencing technology, we evaluated four CpG sites in the promoter of the BDNF. Our results showed that BDNF methylation was significantly higher in AD cases than in the controls (CpG1: p = 10.021; CpG2: p = 0.002; CpG3: p = 0.007; CpG4: p = 0.005; average methylation: p = 0.004). In addition, BDNF promoter methylation was shown to be significantly correlated with the levels of alkaline phosphatase (ALP), glucose, Lp(a), ApoE and ApoA in males (ALP: r = -0.308, p = 0.042; glucose: r = -0.383, p = 0.010; Lp(a): r = 0.333, p = 0.027; ApoE: r = -0.345, p = 0.032;), ApoA levels in females (r = 0.362, p = 0.033), and C Reactive Protein (CRP) levels in both genders (males: r = -0.373, p = 0.016; females: r = -0.399, p = 0.021). Our work suggested that peripheral BDNF promoter methylation might be a diagnostic marker of AD risk, although its underlying function remains to be elaborated in the future.