Abstract:
Objective To explore the changes of ornithine concentration in peripheral blood of patients with Alzheimer disease (AD), and to analyze the correlation between ornithine concentration and Mini-Mental State Examination (MMSE) score, and its diagnostic value in cognitive impairment.
Methods Peripheral blood samples of 26 AD patients (AD group) with positive images of 18F-AV45 positron emission tomography (PET) from Zhongshan Hospital, Fudan University and 30 healthy controls (control group) from community were collected from October 2020 to January 2022, and the plasma ornithine concentration was determined by the ornithine kit.The correlation between plasma ornithine concentration and MMSE score was evaluated by Pearson correlation analysis.Multiple linear regression model was established to analyze the effect of plasma ornithine concentration, age and sex on MMSE score.The diagnostic effect of plasma ornithine concentration on cognitive impairment was analyzed by receiver operating characteristic (ROC) curve.
Results The average ornithine concentration was (458.55±17.90)μmol/L in AD group and (640.21±36.48)μmol/L in control group.The difference between the two groups was statistically significant (P < 0.001).Pearson correlation analysis showed that there was a positive linear correlation between plasma ornithine concentration and MMSE (r=0.437 9, P=0.000 7).Multivariate regression analysis showed that the plasma ornithine concentration had an significantly effect on MMSE score (β=0.202, P=0.001).ROC curve analysis showed that the optimal cut-off value of plasma ornithine concentration for cognitive impairment was 557.58 μmol/L, the sensitivity was 70.0% and the selectivity was 88.5%.
Conclusions The plasma ornithine concentration in AD patients is lower than that in healthy controls, which is positively correlated with MMSE score.In addition, plasma ornithine concentration has a certain diagnostic value in evaluating the cognitive impairment.