Daijiworld Media Network - New York

New York, Jun 23: Researchers at Mount Sinai have discovered blood-based RNA biomarkers that could offer a promising new method for earlier diagnosis of Alzheimer’s disease through a minimally invasive approach.

The findings, published in Nature Communications, could help overcome current challenges in Alzheimer’s diagnosis, where symptoms often overlap with other conditions and existing diagnostic methods such as lumbar puncture and PET imaging can be expensive or invasive.

An estimated 55 million people worldwide are living with Alzheimer’s disease, according to Alzheimer’s Disease International. Scientists believe blood-based biomarkers could support wider clinical use by enabling easier and more accessible testing.

Researchers from the Icahn School of Medicine at Mount Sinai developed a simple and cost-effective method to isolate extracellular vesicles and particles (EVPs) from blood and brain tissue. They analysed RNA biomarkers from samples of Alzheimer’s patients and healthy individuals to identify gene expression patterns and their cellular origins.

The team separated EVPs into three groups — large extracellular vesicles, small extracellular vesicles and small extracellular particles — to study their role in carrying disease-related information.

The researchers also identified tiny blood nanoparticles called “SECmeres”, which carried Alzheimer’s-related brain signals more clearly than standard extracellular vesicles. These particles showed higher levels of brain-specific markers and may provide a new pathway for early detection of the neurodegenerative disease.

Navneet Dogra, PhD, assistant professor of pathology, molecular and cell-based medicine and member of the Icahn Genomics Institute at Mount Sinai, said the study showed that blood EVPs contain brain-specific RNA information that could support liquid biopsy approaches, subject to confirmation through larger clinical trials.

“Our study demonstrates that blood EVPs carry brain-specific RNA information that could be used for liquid biopsy approaches,” Dogra said, adding that EVP-based RNA signals may reveal disease changes earlier, before proteins or visible brain pathology become detectable.

He said SECmeres could become an important tool in understanding neurodegenerative diseases and may provide a real-time, non-invasive method to study the living human brain.

The researchers said the discovery could have wider applications in liquid biopsy technologies aimed at detecting neurodegenerative disorders, cancer and other diseases through simple blood tests.

Panos Roussos, MD, PhD, professor of psychiatry and genetics and genomic sciences and director of the Center for Disease Neurogenomics at Mount Sinai, said Alzheimer’s remains a major global health challenge due to its rising prevalence, impact on families and economic burden.

The findings support the development of RNA-based liquid biopsy tests that could help advance earlier detection of Alzheimer’s disease, researchers said.