Elevated glial fibrillary acidic protein levels in the cerebrospinal fluid of patients with narcolepsy |
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Affiliation: | 1. Department of Neurology, University of Ulm, Germany;2. Division of Endocrinology, Diabetes and Metabolism, Ulm University Medical Center, Ulm, Germany;3. Department of Neurology, Schwalmstadt-Treysa, Germany;4. Department of Neurology, University of Marburg, Germany |
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Abstract: | Glial fibrillary acidic protein (GFAP) is an established indicator of astrogliosis. Therefore, variable cerebrospinal fluid (CSF) concentrations of this protein might reflect disease-specific pathologic profiles. In patients with narcolepsy, a loss of hypocretin-1 (hcrt-1) neurons in the brain and low concentrations of hcrt-1 in CSF have been reported. We performed a commercially available enzyme-linked immunosorbent assay to investigate if GFAP also is altered in the CSF of these patients. Here we detected significantly higher CSF levels of GFAP in patients with low hcrt-1 levels, of which the majority had a diagnosis of narcolepsy and cataplexy (NC); however, this finding was not observed in patients with hcrt-1 levels that were within reference range. In conclusion, GFAP may be useful as an additional disease biomarker in patients with narcolepsy, and this hypothesis should be investigated in larger studies. |
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Keywords: | Glial fibrillary acidic protein GFAP Narcolepsy Cataplexy Cerebrospinal fluid Hypocretin-1 Astrogliosis |
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