Unlocking the potential of pTau 231 in Alzheimer’s disease research with the enhanced sensitivity and precision of the SPEAR UltraDetect pTau 231 Assay

Phosphorylated tau at threonine 231 (pTau 231) is emerging as a promising blood-based biomarker for incipient Alzheimer’s disease (AD) pathology, yet the sensitivity of existing assays like Simoa^® is still inadequate to reliably quantify blood pTau 231 in healthy individuals, with reported 78% and 40% detectability and quantifiability, respectively.

In this application note, we compare the analytical performance of SPEAR UltraDetect^™ pTau 231 Assay with Simoa pTau 213 Advantage PLUS Assay in measuring plasma pTau 231. The SPEAR assay demonstrates higher sensitivity and precision, achieving 100% detection and 100% quantification in healthy individuals and greater precision (Average CV 4.2% vs. 13.8% for Simoa). With enhanced sensitivity and precision, SPEAR UltraDetect enables robust quantification of baseline and subthreshold changes in pTau 231 levels, unlocking the potential of pTau 231 as a plasma biomarker for early AD detection and longitudinal tracking of disease progression.