D015 Can levels of plasma galectin-3 be used to monitor disease progression in Huntinton’s disease? A cross-sectional study

<h3>Objective</h3> To compare the levels of plasma galectin-3 in patients with Huntington’s disease (HD) and healthy controls to determine if plasma galectin-3 can be used as a biomarker to monitor disease progression and response to treatment in HD. <h3>Background</h3> Galectin-3 is a beta-galactoside-binding protein that has been demonstrated to have an important role in several neurodegenerative diseases including Alzheimer9s disease and Parkinson’s disease. A recent study by Siew et al. 2019 using a small patient number (n=26) has reported that plasma galectin-3 level was elevated in patients with HD compared with healthy controls and the elevated galectin-3 level was correlated with motor and cognitive markers of HD disease severity. <h3>Methods</h3> In this retrospective cross-sectional study, the plasma from 53 genetically confirmed patients with HD and 57 age- and gender-matched healthy controls were obtained from the HDClarity biobank. The concentrations of galectin-3 and galectin-1, another member of the galectin family, in these two groups were determined by galectin-3 and galectin-1 ELISA. The results were analysed by Mann-Whitney U analysis. <h3>Results</h3> Plasma galectin-3 concentrations were significantly higher in patients with manifest HD (2.46ng/ml) compared with controls (2.05ng/ml, p=0.01, Z score 2.72). The concentration of galectin-1 on the other hand did not show significant difference between patients with HD (19.40ng/ml) and healthy controls (30.74ng/ml) p=0.54. <h3>Conclusions</h3> These results confirm the early study by Siew et al. that the level of plasma galectin-3 is significantly elevated in HD patients compared with healthy controls. The level of plasma galectin-1, another member of the galectin family, is not changed in patients with HD in comparison to healthy people. These findings support the possibility that level of circulating galectin-3 may be a useful biomarker to monitor HD disease progression and response to treatment. Further study is underway in our lab to determine the relationship between galectin-3 and the clinical markers of disease progression in HD.