In the last century a healthier life style and great advances in scientific biomedical research have led to a significant increase of life expectancy. Thus medical problems of aging have become very common and research on neurodegenerative diseases has received growing attention. Alzheimer disease (AD) is the most common cause of dementia. Effective therapies are still missing, mainly due to the lack of appropriate diagnostic tools. When a neurodegenerative disease is clinically manifest, the neuronal damage is already spread. Therefore, identifying early events preceding irreversible brain damage is essential. AD patients often show visual impairments with structural and functional retina abnormalities before other cognitive functions, and Ab deposits, main hallmark of AD, lead to retina degeneration in AD mouse models. Due to its sensitivity to pathological conditions and its substantial accessibility, retina analysis as a mirror of AD pathology seems promising for an early diagnosis.

A chronic oxidative stress anticipates retina degeneration in AD. We showed that, due to its involvement in oxidative process, CLIC1 is a good candidate for early diagnosis of neurodegeneration. We performed immunohistochemistry on retina slices from acute and chronic mouse models of AD. Moreover, by comparing CLIC1 time-dependent expression in retina and hippocampus of WT and AD mouse models, we explored the possibility to use CLIC1 as early accessible marker for neurodegenerative diseases.