Page 61 - Annual Report 2018

3. SCIENTIFIC ACTIVITY

dants at the Day Center, with the main objective of analytics. Thus, performing a venipuncture in the pa-
investigating the final stages of Alzheimer's disease. tient for research purposes only is avoided. After ex-
A family member or guardian recruits patients into traction, each blood sample is processed at once,
the monitoring program after signing an Informed resulting in 14 aliquots comprising various hematolo-
Consent. The Alzheimer Project program consists of i) gic derivatives (whole blood, plasma, serum, etc.),
a biannual clinical and neuropsychological assess- including extraction of DNA for genetic studies.
ment by the Multidisciplinary Support Unit (UMA. for
its acronym in Spanish), ii) a biannual blood sam- Aliquots obtained from blood samples are incorpo-
pling, coincident with the usual one taken at the re- rated into the CIEN Tissue Bank (BT-CIEN, for its
sidence, iii) conducting an annual cranial MRI if the acronym in Spanish) collection according to the pro-
patient's condition allows it, and iv) donation of brain tocols of the biobank. The total number of samples
tissue after patient's death. incorporated to the BT-CIEN so far, corresponding to
the Alzheimer project monitoring program, adds up
The CAFRS takes care of 156 patients in residence, to 2,946 (15.8% patients corresponding to the Day
and 40 patients in the Day Centre. The Alzheimer Centre), which have resulted in a total of 41,244 ali-
project-monitoring program includes obtaining a quots of different fractions derived from blood
blood sample biannually coinciding with the one samples.
routinely performed at the Center for conventional
Consistent with other studies, the analysis of the
APOE gene polymorphism in CAFRS patients revea-
led a high presence of allele ε4, which in this popu-
Distribuon of genotypes of APOE
gene in the populaon of volunteers lation appears to be more prevalent in men. In
addition, the phenomenon of advancement of the
from the Vallecas Project
age of onset of Alzheimer's disease associated with
APOE genotypes
the ε4 allele observed in other cohorts, is noted, as it
is the reverse phenomenon of delayed age of onset
associated with the ε2 allele.
ε2/ε2 ε2/ε4
5 10
ε4/ε4 Other projects
1% 1%
12
1% ε2/ε3 Currently, several lines of study are being followed
118 up based on the combined use of biochemical mar-
10% kers and genetic data.
ε3/ε4
195
MicroRNAs and lipid metabolism markers as
16%
potential links between vascular dysfunction and
ε3/ε3 Alzheimer’s physiopathology
848
71%
During 2018 the project entitled "miRNA and lipid
metabolism markers as potential links between vas-
cular dysfunction and Alzheimer's pathophysiology"
has continued, funded from MINECO (RETOS call for

CIEN Foundation Annual Report 2018 / 61