An overview of circulating cell-free microRNAs as putative biomarkers in Alzheimer's and Parkinson's Diseases

Circulating cell-free microRNAs (miRNAs) are stable in many biological fluids and their expression profiles can suffer changes under different physiological and pathological conditions. In the last few years, miRNAs have been proposed as putative noninvasive biomarkers in diagnosis, prognosis and response to treatment for several diseases, including neurodegenerative disorders as Alzheimer's disease (AD) and Parkinson's disease (PD). Cognitive and/or motor impairments are usually considered for establishing clinical diagnosis, and at this stage, the majority of the neurons may already be lost making difficult attempts of novel therapies. In this review, we intend to survey the circulating cell-free miRNAs found as dysregulated in cerebrospinal fluid, serum and plasma samples in AD and PD patients, and show how those miRNAs can be useful for early and differential diagnosis. Beyond that, we highlighted the miRNAs that are possibly related to common molecular mechanisms in the neurodegeneration process, as well those miRNAs related to specific disease pathways.