Amyotrophic Lateral Sclerosis (ALS) is a neurodegenerative disease characterized by an intracellular deposition of TDP-43, a protein involved in RNA metabolism. The diagnosis of ALS is mainly based on the clinical evaluation of patients, and the identification of new biomarkers represents an urgent need.

This collaborative study, involving researchers from Università degli Studi di Milano-Bicocca, Centro Clinico NEMO, Milan and Università Vita e Salute San Raffaele, Milan, evidenced for the first time that serum anti-TDP-43 naturally auto-antibodies (NAb) are detectable in human serum of both healthy controls and patients affected by a variety of neurodegenerative disorders; this study also demonstrated that the levels of these NAb are increased in ALS patients, representing a potentially interesting trait core marker of this disease useful for paving the way toward targeting TDP-43 by immunotherapy in ALS.

Conti, E., Sala, G., Diamanti, S. et al. Serum naturally occurring anti-TDP-43 auto-antibodies are increased in amyotrophic lateral sclerosis. Sci Rep 11, 1978 (2021). DOI: https://doi.org/10.1038/s41598-021-81599-5