Cited by 347Alzheimer's disease research and treatmentsNeuroinflammation and Neurodegeneration MechanismsDementia and Cognitive Impairment Research

Early increase of CSF sTREM2 in Alzheimer’s disease is associated with tau related-neurodegeneration but not with amyloid-β pathology

Open access
for the Alzheimer’s Disease Neuroimaging Initiative, Suárez-Calvet, Marc, Morenas-Rodríguez, Estrella, Kleinberger, Gernot, Schlepckow, Kai, Araque Caballero, Miguel Ángel, Franzmeier, Nicolai, Capell, Anja +13 more·2019·Molecular Neurodegeneration

Abstract

BACKGROUND: TREM2 is a transmembrane receptor that is predominantly expressed by microglia in the central nervous system. Rare variants in the TREM2 gene increase the risk for late-onset Alzheimer's disease (AD). Soluble TREM2 (sTREM2) resulting from shedding of the TREM2 ectodomain can be detected in the cerebrospinal fluid (CSF) and is a surrogate measure of TREM2-mediated microglia function. CSF sTREM2 has been previously reported to increase at different clinical stages of AD, however, alterations in relation to Amyloid β-peptide (Aβ) deposition or additional pathological processes in the amyloid cascade (such as tau pathology or neurodegeneration) remain unclear. In the current cross-sectional study, we employed the biomarker-based classification framework recently proposed by the NIA-AA consensus guidelines, in combination with clinical staging, in order to examine the CSF sTREM2 alterations at early asymptomatic and symptomatic stages of AD. METHODS: (A), phosphorylated tau (T) and total tau as a marker of neurodegeneration (N), at different clinical stages defined by the clinical dementia rating (CDR) score. RESULTS: CSF sTREM2 differed between TREM2 variants, whereas the p.R47H variant had higher CSF sTREM2, p.L211P had lower CSF sTREM2 than non-carriers. We found that CSF sTREM2 increased in early symptomatic stages of late-onset AD but, unexpectedly, we observed decreased CSF sTREM2 levels at the earliest asymptomatic phase when only abnormal Aβ pathology (A+) but no tau pathology or neurodegeneration (TN-), is present. CONCLUSIONS: Aβ pathology (A) and tau pathology/neurodegeneration (TN) have differing associations with CSF sTREM2. While tau-related neurodegeneration is associated with an increase in CSF sTREM2, Aβ pathology in the absence of downstream tau-related neurodegeneration is associated with a decrease in CSF sTREM2.

The claims and statistics of this paper haven’t been checked yet.

Run the check — free, no account needed. It reads the open-access text and checks the sources it cites.

A few free checks a day · papers already verified open instantly · results are public

Integrity signals

Registry

Crossref · 10.1186/s13024-018-0301-5

Cites

57 of 57 references verified0 citation errors · 0 not checkable

Statistics

Claims the paper makes

The claims and statistics of this paper haven’t been checked yet.

Run the check — free, no account needed. It reads the open-access text and checks the sources it cites.

A few free checks a day · papers already verified open instantly · results are public

Claims other papers make about this one

Each is checked against this paper’s own text: does it say what the citing paper says it does?

  • These inconsistent findings can be attributed to the different mouse models used and the different disease stages investigated in the studies.

    “These inconsistent findings can be attributed to the different mouse models used and the different disease stages investigated in the studies79.”

    From INPP5D/SHIP1 regulates endo-lysosomal function and cargo-selective phagocytosis in human microglia (2025) · cites this paper as [79]

    The Discussion (page unavailable) discusses changes in human CSF sTREM2 across disease stages and explains why an early-stage finding was absent from the authors’ previous studies. It does not attribute inconsistent findings in mouse studies to differences in mouse models or disease stages. Searches for those terms and for discrepancies between studies found no passage making that explanation. (LLM, conf=0.74)

    Experimental — accuracy not yet measured

Self-check

Percentages, sums and reported differences re-computed from the paper’s own numbers.

The self-check needs the paper’s full text.

Cites

Flagged first, then by citations

Cited by

Sorted by citations

Authors
Initiative, F. T. A. D. N., Suárez-Calvet, M., Morenas-Rodríguez, E., Kleinberger, G., Schlepckow, K., Araque Caballero, M. Á., Franzmeier, N., Capell, A., Fellerer, K., Nuscher, B., Eren, E., Levin, J., Deming, Y., Piccio, L., Karch, C. M., Cruchaga, C., Shaw, L. M., Trojanowski, J. Q., Weiner, M., Ewers, M., & Haass, C.
Affiliations
  • German Center for Neurodegenerative Diseases (DE)
  • Institut für Schlaganfall- und Demenzforschung (DE)
  • Ludwig-Maximilians-Universität München (DE)
  • Dokuz Eylül University (TR)
  • Washington University in St. Louis (US)
  • University of Pennsylvania (US)
  • University of California, San Francisco (US)
  • Munich Cluster for Systems Neurology (DE)
Corresponding author
Haass, Christian
Venue
Molecular Neurodegeneration
Published
2019-01-10
Volume
14
Issue
1
Pages
1-1
ISSN
1750-1326 (ISSN-L)
OpenAlex
W2911811341
Cited by
347
References
57
Citations by year
2026: 31 · 2025: 56 · 2024: 67 · 2023: 52 · 2022: 49 · 2021: 35 · 2020: 42 · 2019: 13 · 2018: 1
FWCI
23.84
Type
journal article
Language
en
Open access
Locations
  • Molecular Neurodegeneration (publishedVersion, cc-by)
  • Europe PMC (PubMed Central) (publishedVersion, cc-by)
  • PubMed Central (publishedVersion, cc-by)
  • PubMed (publishedVersion)
  • Digital Commons@Becker (Washington University School of Medicine) (submittedVersion, cc-by)
  • Dipòsit Digital de Documents de la UAB (Universitat Autònoma de Barcelona) (submittedVersion, cc-by)
  • DIGITAL.CSIC (Spanish National Research Council (CSIC)) (submittedVersion, cc-by)
  • LA Referencia (Red Federada de Repositorios Institucionales de Publicaciones Científicas) (submittedVersion, cc-by)
  • DOAJ (DOAJ: Directory of Open Access Journals) (submittedVersion)
  • Open access LMU (Ludwid Maxmilian's Universitat Munchen) (submittedVersion, cc-by)
  • eScholarship (California Digital Library) (submittedVersion, cc-by)
  • DZNE Pub (submittedVersion, other-oa)
Funders
  • Deutsche Forschungsgemeinschaft (EXC 1010SyNergy, HA1737/16-1)
  • Association for Frontotemporal Degeneration (-)
  • National Institutes of Health (R01AG044546, RF1AG053303, RF1AG058501, and U01AG058922)
  • Fondazione Italiana Sclerosi Multipla (FISM 2017/R/20)
  • Instituto de Salud Carlos III (-)
  • H2020 Marie Skłodowska-Curie Actions (752310)
Topics
  • Health Sciences › Medicine › Physiology › Alzheimer's disease research and treatments
  • Life Sciences › Neuroscience › Neurology › Neuroinflammation and Neurodegeneration Mechanisms
  • Health Sciences › Medicine › Psychiatry and Mental health › Dementia and Cognitive Impairment Research
Keywords
soluble TREM2, Alzheimer's disease, cerebrospinal fluid biomarkers, tau phosphorylation, total tau, amyloid-beta pathology, neurodegeneration, microglia, Clinical Dementia Rating, asymptomatic Alzheimer's disease, amyloid hypothesis
MeSH terms
Aged, Aged, 80 and over, Alzheimer Disease, Cross-Sectional Studies, Female, Humans, Male, Membrane Glycoproteins, Middle Aged, Nerve Degeneration, Receptors, Immunologic, Biomarkers, Amyloid beta-Peptides, tau Proteins

About these checks

Registry, retraction, Cites and statistics results are computed, not judged, with one exception: a printed reference that no index lists is read once by a model before it counts as a citation error. Claims are extracted by a model and kept only when their quote appears verbatim in the text; each cited source is then checked, with a model’s help, for whether it says what the claim relies on. Those verdicts can be wrong — read the claim’s quote and the cited source before relying on one.

Statistics and arithmetic are recomputed, not judged.

Confidence bands are shown only for fields calibrated on our annotated test set. None is calibrated yet, so no band is shown.

What counts as a claim ›How we measure confidence ›How we check this ›

Are you an author, or do you see a problem with this page? Request a review