Ceramides and sphingosine-1-phosphate as potential markers in diagnosis of ischaemic stroke.

BACKGROUND: Brain imaging in stroke diagnostics is a powerful tool, but one that can fail in more challenging cases, and one that is not particularly useful in identifying transient ischaemic attacks (TIAs). Thus, new reliable blood biomarkers of cerebral ischaemia are constantly sought. OBJECTIVE: We studied the potential usefulness of sphingolipids (SFs) as biomarkers of acute ischaemic stroke and TIA. MATERIAL AND METHODS: Levels of individual ceramide species and sphingosine-1-phosphate (Sph-1-P) in blood serum of patients with acute ischaemic stroke, TIA, and age-matched neurological patients without cerebral ischaemia, were assessed by tandem mass spectrometry liquid chromatography (LC- MS / MS). RESULTS: We found significant increases of several sphingolipid levels, with particularly strong elevations of Cer-C20:0 in patients with acute stroke. Cer-C24:1 was the only ceramide species to decrease as a result of acute stroke. Moreover, its levels inversely correlated with the number of days after stroke onset, suggesting that Cer-C24:1 is an independent parameter related to the course of stroke. To increase the sensitivity of sphingolipid-based tests in stroke diagnostics, we calculated the values of ratios of Sph-1-P / individual ceramide species and Cer-C24:1 individual ceramide species. We found several ratios significantly changed in stroke patients. Two ratios, Sph-1-P / Cer-C24:1 and Cer-C24:0 / Cer-C24:1, presented especially strong increments in patients with acute stroke. Moreover, Sph-1-P / Cer-C24:1 values were augmented in TIA patients. CONCLUSION: Serum SFs could be good candidates to be ischaemic stroke biomarkers. We have identified two SF ratios, Sph-1-P / Cer-C24:1 and Cer-C24:0 / Cer-C24:1, with strong diagnostic potential in ischaemic stroke. We found Sph-1-P / Cer-C24:1 ratio to be possibly useful in TIA diagnostics, also in the long term after ischaemic incidence.