Measuring neuropsychiatric symptoms in early dementia patients using speech analysis

Introduction

Certain neuropsychiatric symptoms (NPS), namely apathy, depression and anxiety demonstrated great value in predicting dementia progression representing eventually an opportunity window for timely diagnosis and treatment. However, sensitive and objective markers of these symptoms are still missing.

Objectives

To investigate the association between automatically extracted speech features and NPS in early-stage dementia patients.

Methods

Speech of 141 patients aged 65 or older with neurocognitive disorder was recorded while performing two short narrative speech tasks. Presence of NPS was assessed by the Neuropsychiatric Inventory. Paralinguistic markers relating to prosodic, formant, source, and temporal qualities of speech were automatically extracted, correlated with NPS. Machine learning experiments were carried out to validate the diagnostic power of extracted markers.

Results

Different speech variables seem to be associated with specific neuropsychiatric symptoms of dementia; apathy correlates with temporal aspects, anxiety with voice quality and this was mostly consistent between male and female after correction for cognitive impairment. Machine learning regressors are able to extract information from speech features and perform above baseline in predicting anxiety, apathy and depression scores.

Conclusions

Different NPS seem to be characterized by distinct speech features which in turn were easily extractable automatically from short vocal tasks. These findings support the use of speech analysis for detecting subtypes of NPS. This could have great implications for future clinical trials.

Disclosure

No significant relationships.

Isolation of HDL by sequential flotation ultracentrifugation followed by size exclusion chromatography reveals size-based enrichment of HDL-associated proteins

High-density lipoprotein (HDL) particles have multiple beneficial and cardioprotective roles, yet our understanding of their full structural and functional repertoire is limited due to challenges in separating HDL particles from contaminating plasma proteins and other lipid-carrying particles that overlap HDL in size and/or density. Here we describe a method for isolating HDL particles using a combination of sequential flotation density ultracentrifugation and fast protein liquid chromatography with a size exclusion column. Purity was visualized by polyacrylamide gel electrophoresis and verified by proteomics, while size and structural integrity were confirmed by transmission electron microscopy. This HDL isolation method can be used to isolate a high yield of purified HDL from a low starting plasma volume for functional analyses. This method also enables investigators to select their specific HDL fraction of interest: from the least inclusive but highest purity HDL fraction eluting in the middle of the HDL peak, to pooling all of the fractions to capture the breadth of HDL particles in the original plasma sample. We show that certain proteins such as lecithin cholesterol acyltransferase (LCAT), phospholipid transfer protein (PLTP), and clusterin (CLUS) are enriched in large HDL particles whereas proteins such as alpha-2HS-glycoprotein (A2HSG), alpha-1 antitrypsin (A1AT), and vitamin D binding protein (VDBP) are enriched or found exclusively in small HDL particles.

Comprehensive evaluation of methods for small extracellular vesicles separation from human plasma, urine and cell culture medium

One of the challenges that restricts the evolving extracellular vesicle (EV) research field is the lack of a consensus method for EV separation. This may also explain the diversity of the experimental results, as co-separated soluble proteins and lipoproteins may impede the interpretation of experimental findings. In this study, we comprehensively evaluated the EV yields and sample purities of three most popular EV separation methods, ultracentrifugation, precipitation and size exclusion chromatography combined with ultrafiltration, along with a microfluidic tangential flow filtration device, Exodisc, in three commonly used biological samples, cell culture medium, human urine and plasma. Single EV phenotyping and density-gradient ultracentrifugation were used to understand the proportion of true EVs in particle separations. Our findings suggest Exodisc has the best EV yield though it may co-separate contaminants when the non-EV particle levels are high in input materials. We found no 100% pure EV preparations due to the overlap of their size and density with many non-EV particles in biofluids. Precipitation has the lowest sample purity, regardless of sample type. The purities of the other techniques may vary in different sample types and are largely dependent on their working principles and the intrinsic composition of the input sample. Researchers should choose the proper separation method according to the sample type, downstream analysis and their working scenarios.

Release of extracellular vesicle miR-494-3p by ARPE-19 cells with impaired mitochondria

BACKGROUND

Mitochondrial function in retinal pigmented epithelial (RPE) cells and extracellular vesicle (EV) formation/release are related through the lysosomal and exocytotic pathways that process and eliminate intracellular material, including mitochondrial fragments. We propose that RPE cells with impaired mitochondria will release EVs containing mitochondrial miRNAs that reflect the diminished capacity of mitochondria within these cells.

METHODS

We screened ARPE-19 cells for miRNAs that localize to the mitochondria, exhibit biological activity, and are present in EVs released by both untreated cells and cells treated with rotenone to induce mitochondrial injury. EVs were characterized by vesicle size, size distribution, presence of EV biomarkers: CD81, CD63, and syntenin-1, miRNA cargo, and number concentration of EVs released per cell.

RESULTS

We found that miR-494-3p was enriched in ARPE-19 mitochondria. Knockdown of miR-494-3p in ARPE-19 cells decreased ATP production and mitochondrial membrane potential in a dose-dependent manner, and decreased basal oxygen consumption rate and maximal respiratory capacity. Increased number of EVs released per cell and elevated levels of miR-494-3p in EVs released from ARPE-19 cells treated with rotenone were also measured.

CONCLUSIONS

ARPE-19 mitochondrial function is regulated by miR-494-3p. Elevated levels of miR-494-3p in EVs released by ARPE-19 cells indicate diminished capacity of the mitochondria within these cells.

GENERAL SIGNIFICANCE

EV miR-494-3p is a potential biomarker for RPE mitochondrial dysfunction, which plays a central role in non-neovascular age-related macular degeneration, and may be a diagnostic biomarker for monitoring the spread of degeneration to neighboring RPE cells in the retina.

Stable tRNA halves can be sorted into extracellular vesicles and delivered to recipient cells in a concentration-dependent manner

Extracellular vesicles (EVs) are cell-derived nanoparticles that act as natural carriers of nucleic acids between cells. They offer advantages as delivery vehicles for therapeutic nucleic acids such as small RNAs. Loading of desired nucleic acids into EVs can be achieved by electroporation or transfection once purified. An attractive alternative is to transfect cells with the desired small RNAs and harness the cellular machinery for RNA sorting into the EVs. This possibility has been less explored because cells are believed to secrete only specific RNAs. However, we hypothesized that, even in the presence of selective secretion, concentration-driven RNA sorting to EVs would still be feasible. To show this, we transfected cells with glycine 5' tRNA halves, which we have previously shown to better resist RNases. We then measured their levels in EVs and in recipient cells and found that, in contrast to unstable RNAs of random sequence, these tRNA halves were present in vesicles and in recipient cells in amounts proportional to the concentration of RNA used for transfection. Similar efficiencies were obtained with other stable oligonucleotides of random sequence. Our results demonstrate that RNA stability is a key factor needed to maintain high intracellular concentrations, a prerequisite for efficient non-selective RNA sorting to EVs and delivery to cells. Given that glycine 5' tRNA halves belong to the group of stress-induced tRNA fragments frequently detected in extracellular space and biofluids, we propose that upregulation of extracellular tRNA fragments is consequential to cellular stress and might be involved in intercellular signalling.