Global Energy Metabolism Deficit in Alzheimer Disease Brain

The understanding of Alzheimer's disease (AD) has been dominated by the amyloid hypothesis. However, therapies targeting beta-amyloid have largely failed, generating interest in other potential pathogenic factors including energy metabolism.

To interrogate canonical energy metabolism pathways from human prefrontal cortical tissue samples obtained from necropsy comparing AD and control.

Postmortem pre-frontal cortical tissue from 10 subjects histologically diagnosed with AD and 10 control (CTRL) subjects was subjected to untargeted metabolomics to interrogate energy metabolism pathways. The samples were matched by age, sex, and post-mortem interval. Metabolite Measurements: Untargeted metabolomics analyses were via Metabolon®.

Glucose-derived energy metabolites in the glycolytic and pentose phosphate pathway and the ketone body β-hydroxybutyrate were uniformly decreased in AD brain vs. CTRL brain.

This pilot study aimed to identify energy metabolism abnormalities using untargeted brain metabolomics in two independent subject cohorts. Our study revealed a pattern of global energy deficit in AD brain, supporting a growing body of evidence of deficient energy metabolism in AD.