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Cerebrospinal fluid MFG-E8 as a promising biomarker of amyotrophic lateral sclerosis

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Abstract

Introduction

Amyotrophic lateral sclerosis (ALS) is a fatal progressive neurodegenerative disease resulting in the dysfunction of upper and lower motor neurons. Biomarkers in fluid have been used to monitor the disease and its progression. Milk fat globule-EGF factor 8 (MFG-E8) is an inflammation modulator, which is involved in the pathogenesis of neurodegenerative diseases. We here took this study to evaluate the predictive value of MFG-E8 in ALS.

Methods

This study consisted of 19 patients with ALS and 15 healthy controls. Cerebrospinal fluid (CSF) were collected from all participants and tested for the levels of MFG-E8, neurofilament light (NFL), and heavy chain (NFH). The correlations between MFG-E8 and NFL, NFH, ALS severity, cognitive status, and forced vital capacity (FVC) were analyzed.

Results

We found that MFG-E8 performs well in distinguishing ALS from controls, with relatively higher level of MFG-E8 in ALS subjects, than controls. Moreover, MFG-E8 negatively correlated with the revised ALS function rating scale (ALS-FRS), but not with the levels of NFL and NFH, disease duration, progression rate, mini-mental state examination (MMSE), and FVC.

Conclusions

The study proved that CSF MFG-E8 helps distinguish ALS from controls. However, the protein in CSF negatively predicted disease severity.

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Funding

This study was supported by grants from the National Natural Science Foundation of China (Grant No. 81701061, 81901084), the Medical Scientific Research Foundation of Guangdong Province of China (Grant No. A2019114), and the Shaanxi Provincial Natural Science Foundation (2017 JM8042).

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. Department of Neurology, Guangdong Provincial Hospital of Chinese Medicine, The Second Affiliated Hospital of Guangzhou University of Chinese Medicine, Guangzhou, Guangdong, China

    Biying Yang, Yihao Wang, Huili Yang & Baoxin Du

  2. Department of Radiology, The Seventh Affiliated Hospital of Sun Yat-sen University, Shenzhen, China

    Yongshun Wu

  3. Department of Neurology, Shaanxi Provincial People’s Hospital, The Affiliated Hospital of Northwestern Polytechnical University, Xi’an, China

    Wei Di

  4. Department of Neurology, The Affiliated Hospital of Yangzhou University, Yangzhou, China

    Xiaotian Xu

  5. Department of Neurology, The First Affiliated Hospital of Wannan Medical College, Wuhu, Anhui, China

    Xiaolei Shi

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  1. Biying Yang
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  2. Yongshun Wu
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  3. Yihao Wang
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  4. Huili Yang
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  5. Baoxin Du
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  6. Wei Di
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  7. Xiaotian Xu
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  8. Xiaolei Shi
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Correspondence to Xiaolei Shi.

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The authors declare that they have no conflict of interests.

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No interventions were done outside the routine clinical care for patients. Subjects have given their written informed consents and the study protocol was approved by the institutional review board.

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Yang, B., Wu, Y., Wang, Y. et al. Cerebrospinal fluid MFG-E8 as a promising biomarker of amyotrophic lateral sclerosis. Neurol Sci 41, 2915–2920 (2020). https://doi.org/10.1007/s10072-020-04416-3

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