Differential blood DNA methylation across Lewy body dementias

• Published in: Alzheimer's & dementia : diagnosis, assessment & disease monitoring Vol. 13; no. 1; pp. e12156 - n/a
• Main Authors: Nasamran, Chanond A., Sachan, Anubhav Nikunj Singh, Mott, Jennifer, Kuras, Yuliya I., Scherzer, Clemens R., Study, Harvard Biomarkers, Ricciardelli, Eugenia, Jepsen, Kristen, Edland, Steven D., Fisch, Kathleen M., Desplats, Paula
• Format: Journal Article
• Language: English
• Published: United States John Wiley & Sons, Inc 2021; John Wiley and Sons Inc; Wiley
• Subjects: Alzheimer's disease; Behavior disorders; biomarker; Biomarkers; blood; Blood‐based Biomarkers; cognitive scores; Dementia; dementia with Lewy bodies (DLB); DNA methylation; epigenetics; Lewy body diseases (LBD); Neurodegeneration; Parkinson's disease; Parkinson's disease dementia (PDD); Pathology; REM sleep behavior disorder (RBD); Parkinson's disease dementia (PDD); dementia with Lewy bodies (DLB); REM sleep behavior disorder (RBD); DNA methylation; cognitive scores; dementia; biomarker; blood; epigenetics; Lewy body diseases (LBD)
• ISSN: 2352-8729; 2352-8729
• DOI: 10.1002/dad2.12156

Introduction
Dementia with Lewy bodies (DLB) and Parkinson's disease dementia (PDD) are characterized by cognitive alterations, visual hallucinations, and motor impairment. Diagnosis is based on type and timing of clinical manifestations; however, determination of clinical subtypes is challenging. The utility of blood DNA methylation as a biomarker for Lewy body disorders (LBD) is mostly unexplored.
Methods
We performed a cross‐sectional analysis of blood methylation in 42 DLB and 50 PDD cases applying linear models to compare groups and logistic least absolute shrinkage and selection operator regression to explore the discriminant power of methylation signals.
Results
DLB blood shows differential methylation compared to PDD. Some methylation changes associate with core features of LBD. Sets of probes show high predictive value to discriminate between variants.
Discussion
Our study is the first to explore LBD blood methylation. Despite overlapping clinical presentation, we detected differential epigenetic signatures that, if confirmed in independent cohorts, could be developed into useful biomarkers.