Cerebrospinal Fluid BAFF and APRIL Levels in Neuromyelitis Optica and Multiple Sclerosis Patients During Relapse. Wang H, Wang K, Zhong X, Qiu W, Dai Y, Wu A, Hu X. Source Department of Neurology, The First Affiliated Hospital of Anhui Medical University, Hefei, Anhui, China
J Neuroimmunol. 2011 Jul;236(1-2):81-6. Epub 2011 May 31.
?Neurol Neurosurg Psychiatry.
Matrix metalloproteinase-9 (MMP-9) plays an important role in some neuroinflammatory diseases through the blood-brain barrier (BBB) disruption.
Background: The identification of biomarkers able to improve the differential diagnosis between multiple sclerosis (MS) and neuromyelitis optica (NMO) is challenging because of a different prognosis and response to treatment. Growing evidence indicates that brain and CSF N-acetyl aspartate (NAA) concentration is a useful marker for characterising different phases of axonal pathology in demyelinating diseases, and preliminary studies suggest that increased serum NAA levels may be a telltale sign of acute neuronal damage or defective NAA metabolism in oligodendrocytes
The autoantibody to aquaporin-4 (AQP4) is a marker and a pathogenetic factor in Neuromyelitis Optica (NMO) (Devic’s syndrome). Our aim was to identify B-cell antigenic linear epitopes of the AQP4 protein and investigate similarities with other molecules. To this end, we screened sera from 21 patients positive for anti-AQP4 antibodies (study group), from 23 SLE and 23 pSS patients without neurologic involvement (disease controls) and from 28 healthy individuals (normal controls)
OBJECTIVE: Resting-state brain activity in neuromyelitis optica (NMO) patients can give clues to the pathophysiology of the disorder, and may be helpful in diagnosis; however, it has been less explored using functional MRI (fMRI). In the current study, we used a regional homogeneity (ReHo) method to investigate NMO-related modulations of neural activity in the resting state. METHODS: Resting-state fMRIs acquired in 17 NMO patients as well as in 17 age- and sex-matched normal controls were compared.