Patent Document ID: 9933440
Application ID: 15600959
Patent Flag: 1

Claim One:
1. A method for screening candidate drugs for treating Alzheimer's disease in a human subject comprising (1) obtaining a plasma or serum or cerebrospinal fluid (CSF) sample from the human subject with Alzheimer's disease; (2) in a laboratory setting (a) isolating from the plasma or serum or CSF sample central nervous system originated astrocyte-derived exosomes (ADEs), wherein said isolating of said ADEs comprises physical precipitation followed by immunochemical enrichment of said ADEs using antibody against glutamine aspartate transporter (anti-GLAST antibody) based on selective expression of glutamine aspartate transporter (GLAST); (b) subjecting protein extracts of said ADEs to enzyme-linked immunosorbent assays (ELISAs) for detection of (i) at least one protein selected from the group consisting of cluster of differentiation 81 (CD81), glial fibrillary acidic protein (GFAP), glutamine synthetase (GluSyn), β-site amyloid precursor protein-cleaving enzyme 1 (BACE-1), γ-secretase, soluble amyloid precursor protein β (sAPPβ), soluble amyloid precursor protein α (sAPPα), amyloid beta-peptide 42 (Aβ42), TAU protein phosphorylated at threonine residue 181 (P-T181-tau), TAU phosphorylated at serine 396 (P-S396-tau), ubiquilin-1, and septin-8, and/or (ii) microRNA9 microRNAs (miRNAs); and quantifying a level for each of said at least one protein and/or said miRNAs detected in said ADEs and identifying the level of each of said at least one protein and/or said miRNAs quantified as a normal level or a non-normal level for said at least one protein and/or said miRNAs; (c) comparing the levels of said protein and/or said miRNAs quantified in said ADEs with levels of corresponding proteins and/or miRNAs which are present at a normal level in a control sample from a cognitively healthy human subject to establish a statistically significant difference between the levels of the at least one protein and/or said miRNAs of said ADEs and the levels of the corresponding proteins and/or miRNAs in the control sample; (e) combining said ADEs having statistically significant levels of at least one protein and/or said miRNAs of (c) with a drug for treating Alzheimer's disease and incubating such combination for a period of time and, thereafter, subjecting extracts of the ADEs treated with the drug and ADEs of the control sample to ELISAs to quantify the at least one protein previously quantified at the non-normal level and/or RNA assays to quantify said miRNAs previously quantified at the non-normal level and comparing the levels of said proteins and/or said miRNAs in the ADEs to those found in the control sample without the drug to determine effect or lack of effect of said drug on the non-normal levels of said at least one protein and/or said miRNAs.