The biotechnology company Amarantus Bioscience Holdings, Inc., has announced positive analytical performance data for the LymPro Test, the company's flagship blood test for Alzheimer's disease. The data produced begins the process necessary to establish long-term analytical performance to support commercial launch in the second half of 2014. Says Gerald E. Commissiong, Amarantus President & CEO, “We believe LymPro has the potential to become a critical component in the diagnosis paradigm of Alzheimer's disease worldwide.”
LymPro diagnoses Alzheimer's disease by evaluating the response of peripheral blood lymphocytes (PBLs), derived from whole blood, to a mitogenic stimulation that initiates activation of the cell cycle. In healthy individuals, when PBLs are stimulated with pokeweed mitogen (PWM) or phytohaemagglutinin (PHA), the biomarker CD69 is increased as a response to the inappropriate initiation of the cell-cycle process that is subsequently halted by healthy cellular mechanisms. However, in patients with Alzheimer's disease, the biomarker CD69 is not increased, as PBLs enter the cell cycle inappropriately and are not halted due to dysfunctional cellular mechanisms that are hypothesized to be at the root of Alzheimer's disease.
Several independent peer-reviewed studies have supported the hypothesis that human PBLs are an excellent surrogate for human brain neurons when assessing cell cycle and function, making PBLs a potentially ideal minimally invasive biospecimen for the diagnosis of Alzheimer's. The company has created a white paper for LymPro that is available on the company's website that further explains this phenomenon.
