Chapter 15: Lactoferrin: A Potential Theranostic Candidate for Alzheimer's Disease Check Access

AD is a major cause of dementia with significant contribution to the socioeconomic and health burden worldwide. To date, there are no tools for early and accurate diagnosis, or approved therapeutics targeting the root cause of AD. Recently, fluid biomarkers have been gaining importance as diagnostic targets due to non-invasive sample collection and the simple techniques used for their detection. The multifactorial nature of AD demands multifunctional therapeutic agents for treating the disease. There is an unmet need to identify and validate new tangible circulating biomarkers and multifunctional therapeutic candidates for AD. In this direction, recent findings have revealed multifunctional lactoferrin (Lf) as a potential fluid biomarker for early differential diagnosis and possible therapeutic candidate to ameliorate AD. The dual roles designate Lf as a prospective theranostic agent to serve the purposes of diagnosis and treatment. In this chapter, we propose Lf as a potential theranostic candidate for AD diagnosis and treatment, and discuss the associated future challenges.