Tau protein concentrations in cerebrospinal fluid of non-demented Parkinson’s disease patients Jose ´ Antonio Molina a , Julia ´n Benito-Leo ´n a , Fe ´lix Javier Jime ´ nez-Jime ´nez b, *, Miguel Ortı ´-Pareja b , Angel Berbel a , Antonio Tallo ´ n-Barranco a , Fernando de Bustos c , Angel Herna ´nz d a Department of Neurology, Hospital Universitario Doce de Octubre, Madrid, Spain b Section of Neurology, Hospital ‘Prı´ncipe de Asturias’, Universidad de Alcala ´ de Henares, Madrid, Spain c Department of Biochemistry, Hospital Universitario Doce de Octubre, Madrid, Spain d Department of Biochemistry, Hospital Universitario ‘La Paz’, Madrid, Spain Received 13 October 1997; received in revised form 10 November 1997; accepted 10 November 1997 Abstract We measured total tau protein concentrations in the cerebrospinal fluid (CSF) of 26 non-demented Parkinson’s disease (PD) patients and 25 matched controls. When compared with controls, PD patients had similar CSF tau protein concentrations. These values were not correlated with age, age at onset of PD, duration of PD, scores of the Unified PD Rating Scale (UPDRS), and the Hoehn and Yahr staging, and were not influenced significantly by antiparkinsonian drugs. Our results suggest that CSF tau protein levels are apparently unrelated to the risk of PD.  1997 Elsevier Science Ireland Ltd. Keywords: Parkinson’s disease; Tau protein; Cerebrospinal fluid Tau protein is considered to be important for maintaining the stability of axonal microtubules involved in the media- tion of fast axonal transport of synaptic constituents. Several diseases considered to be distinct pathophysiological enti- ties, such as Alzheimer’s (AD) and Parkinson’s disease (PD), contain similar tau-immunoreactive lesions [19]. Tau protein concentrations are increased in brain [6,7,18] and cerebrospinal fluid (CSF) [15,17,21] of AD patients. Brain tissue of demented PD patients contains high concen- trations of tau protein in the prefrontal area, temporal cor- tex, and entorrhinal cortex, while non-demented parkin- sonian patients have normal deposits [4,20]. To our knowledge, there is only one previous report regarding CSF tau protein concentrations in PD. However, this study was designed to assess non-phosphorylated and phosphorylated tau protein CSF concentrations in AD patients compared with a control group, the latter including 15 PD patients [2]. The aim of this study was to assess total tau protein in the CSF of non-demented PD patients compared with non- demented matched controls. Twenty-six PD patients according to the clinical criteria [11] were included in the study. They were evaluated with the Unified Parkinson’s disease Rating Scale (UPDRS) [5] and the Hoehn and Yahr [10] staging. Six patients were untreated, while the other 20 were treated with antiparkin- sonian drugs alone or in combination including levodopa (18 cases), bromocriptine or pergolide (15 cases), and deprenyl (eight cases). The control group comprised 25 ‘healthy’ patients, who underwent lumbar puncture because of suspected (but not confirmed) subarachnoid hemorrhage or pseudotumor cere- bri, oculomotor palsies or other indications in the usual neurological survey. Informed consent was obtained in each case. The clinical features of both groups are summar- ized in Table 1. The following exclusion criteria were applied both to patients and controls: (1) dementia according to DSM-IV criteria [1]; (2) ethanol intake higher than 80 g/day in the Neuroscience Letters 238 (1997) 139–141 0304-3940/97/$17.00  1997 Elsevier Science Ireland Ltd. All rights reserved PII S0304-3940(97)00858-6 * Corresponding author. C/ Corregidor Jose ´ de Pasamonte 24, 3°D, E-28030 Madrid, Spain. Tel.: +34 1 4376078; fax: +34 1 8801825.