Prospects for Diagnosing Neurodegenerative Diseases in Urine
November 22, 2016 | Terry Sharrer
Protein misfolding is a common feature of Crutzfeldt-Jacob, Alzheimer’s and Parkinson’s diseases. But in each case, the proteins are hard to isolate. American researchers published significant findings about detecting variant CJD prions in urine, using a technique called protein misfolding cyclic amplification (similar to PCR). But this piece reports British pathologists’ relative success with the same approach for the more common form, sporatic CJD. Both sets of scientists believe testing can achieve greater sensitivity and specificity, and, if so, protein amplification with urine samples could be a dramatic diagnostic breakthrough for several degenerative brain diseases. MORE
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