The pharmacist Blanca Acha Santamaría has described that certain changes in DNA methylation could be used as potential “less invasive and more accessible” tools to detect Alzheimer’s disease from a blood sample. This advance could allow an “earlier and more precise” detection of this neurodegenerative disease which mainly affects to memory and other cognitive functions.
This is reflected in his doctoral thesis, defended at the Public University of Navarra (UPNA) and developed at Navarrabiomed, a biomedical research center of the Regional Executive and the academic institution.
The DNA methylation is a biological process which acts as a control mechanism over our genes. In this process, the union of a small chemical group (a methyl group) to a specific part of the DNA occurs, which can activate or deactivate the expression of genes and thus affect the normal functioning of cells, explains the UPNA in a press release.
Blanca Acha performed the identification of certain changes in DNA methylation in patients with Alzheimer’s diseasecompared to healthy controls, so the use of DNA methylation biomarkers in peripheral blood It is postulated as “a promising tool in improving the diagnostic accuracy of this condition as part of a panel of peripheral biomarkers,” according to the researcher. Furthermore, their results underline the importance of a research “from a gender perspective” in the search for new diagnostic tools in Alzheimer’s disease.
Likewise, these results “support the possible involvement of DNA methylation in the pathology of Alzheimer’s disease”indicates Blanca Acha, whose thesis has been directed by Maite Mendioroz Iriarte and Idoia Blanco Luquin, researchers at the Neuroepigenetics Unit of Navarrabiomed, and tutored by Ignacio Encío Martínez, professor at the Department of Health Sciences at UPNA.
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