Cerebrospinal Fluid Cytokine Expression Profile in Multiple Sclerosis and Chronic Inflammatory Demyelinating Polyneuropathy.

BACKGROUND: Cerebrospinal fluid (CSF) analysis in patients with particular neurologic disorders is a powerful tool to evaluate specific central nervous system inflammatory markers for diagnostic needs, because CSF represents the specific immune micro-environment to the central nervous system. METHODS: CSF samples from 49 patients with multiple sclerosis (MS), chronic inflammatory demyelinating polyneuropathy (CIDP), and non-inflammatory neurologic disorders (NIND) as controls were submitted to protein expression profiles of 47 inflammatory biomarkers by multiplex Luminex bead assay to investigate possible differences in the inflammatory process for MS and CIDP. RESULTS: Our results showed differences in CSF cytokine levels in MS and CIDP; in particular, IL12 (p40) was significantly highly expressed in MS in comparison with CIDP and NIND, while SDF-1α and SCGF-ß were significantly highly expressed in CIDP cohort when compared to MS and NIND. IL-9, IL-13, and IL-17 had higher expression levels in NIND if compared with the other groups. CONCLUSIONS: Our study showed that, despite some common pathogenic mechanisms, central and peripheral nervous system demyelinating diseases, such as MS and CIDP, differ in some specific inflammatory soluble proteins in CSF, underlining differences in the immune response involved in those autoimmune diseases.

The expression pattern of inflammatory mediators in cerebrospinal fluid differentiates Guillain-Barré syndrome from chronic inflammatory demyelinating polyneuropathy.

INTRODUCTION: Guillain-Barré syndrome (GBS) and chronic inflammatory demyelinating polyneuropathy (CIDP) share histopathological features but display different disease courses; we measured the concentration of 50 inflammatory mediators in the cerebrospinal fluid (CSF) of patients with either of these diseases. PATIENTS AND METHODS: CSF samples were collected during a diagnostic lumbar puncture and stored at -30 degrees C. We analyzed the CSF of nine subjects with GBS; eight with CIDP; eight with diabetic polyneuropathy (DP) and seven with headache (controls). Fifty inflammatory mediators were simultaneously measured with a multiplex bead-based ELISA on a Suspension Array System. After Bonferroni's correction for repeated measures, non-parametric variance and post hoc test were calculated. RESULTS: Thirty-two inflammatory mediators were expressed. The median concentration of IL-6, IL-9, IL-15, IL-18, CCL4, CXCL1, LIF, MIF, PDGFbb, IFN-gamma2, IL-2ra, IL-12(p40), IL-16, SCGF-b, TRAIL, FGF, G-CSF, GM-CSF, and M-CSF was not different among groups (variance: n.s.). The median concentration of CCL2, CCL7, CCL27, CXCL9, CXCL10, CXCL12, ICAM-1, VCAM1 and VEGF was higher in CIDP and GBS compared with controls (p<0.002). The median concentration of IL-8 and IL-1ra was higher in GBS than CIDP or DP or controls, whereas stem cell factor (SCF) and hepatocyte growth factor (HGF) were higher in CIDP than GBS or DP or controls (p<0.002). DISCUSSION: Mediators of the recruitment and activation of lymphocytes and monocytes are expressed in the CSF of CIDP and GBS. IL-8 and IL-1ra are characteristic of GBS, whereas growth factors (SCF, HGF) of CIDP are possibly related to chronicity or to the survival/repair processes of neurons.