大脑的微生物感染会导致痴呆,几十年来,微生物感染与阿尔茨海默病(AD)病理有关。然而,感染在AD中的因果作用仍然存在争议,缺乏标准化的检测方法导致AD大脑中微生物的检测/鉴定不一致。有一个共识的方法是必要的;阿尔茨海默病病理组倡议旨在进行比较分子分析的微生物在死后的大脑和脑脊液,血,嗅觉神经上皮,口腔/鼻咽组织,支气管肺泡,泌尿,和肠道/粪便样本。多样的提取方法,聚合酶链反应和测序技术,和生物信息学工具将被评估,除了直接微生物培养和代谢组学技术。目标是为轻度认知障碍或AD患者提供检测感染因子的路线图。积极的发现将促使定制抗微生物治疗,这可能会减轻或缓解部分患者的临床缺陷。
Microbial infections of the brain can lead to dementia, and for many decades microbial infections have been implicated in Alzheimer\'s disease (AD) pathology. However, a causal role for infection in AD remains contentious, and the lack of standardized detection methodologies has led to inconsistent detection/identification of microbes in AD brains. There is a need for a
consensus methodology; the Alzheimer\'s Pathobiome Initiative aims to perform comparative molecular analyses of microbes in post mortem brains versus cerebrospinal fluid, blood, olfactory neuroepithelium, oral/nasopharyngeal tissue, bronchoalveolar, urinary, and gut/stool samples. Diverse extraction methodologies, polymerase chain reaction and sequencing techniques, and bioinformatic tools will be evaluated, in addition to direct microbial culture and metabolomic techniques. The goal is to provide a roadmap for detecting infectious agents in patients with mild cognitive impairment or AD. Positive findings would then prompt tailoring of antimicrobial treatments that might attenuate or remit mounting clinical deficits in a subset of patients.