Figure 1

Serum levels of ATG5 and Parkin in sera of patients affected by Alzheimer’s disease (AD), vascular dementia (VAD), mild cognitive impairment (MCI), “mixed” dementia (MD) and without signs of cognitive impairment as sex-matched controls. Panel A: ATG5 levels were different among groups (Kruskall-Wallis; p < 0.0001), in particular in post hoc analysis (Dunn’s post hoc test) median ATG5 values were more elevated in Controls and VAD than in AD (p = 0.0051 and p < 0.0001), MCI (p = 0.0004 and p < 0.0001) and MD (p = 0.0045 and p < 0.0001). Panel B: Parkin levels were different among groups (Kruskall-Wallis; p < 0.0001), post hoc analysis (Dunn’s post hoc test) showed higher median values in Controls and VAD respect to AD (p = 0.0034 and p = 0.0029), MCI (both p < 0.0001) and MD (both p = 0.0001). *After stratification by sex, ATG5 and Parkin value resulted augmented in males compared to females in VAD subgroup (Mann-Whitney; p < 0.0001 and p = 0.0245, respectively). The boundaries of the boxes represent the 25th–75th quartile. The line within the box indicates the median. The vertical lines above and below the box correspond to the highest and lowest values.