Significant proteins affecting cerebral vasospasm using complementary ICPMS and MALDI-MS

Cerebral vasospasm (CV) following subarachnoid hemorrhagic stroke affects more than one million people each year. The etiology and prevention of CV is currently of great interest to researchers in various fields of medical science. More recently, the idea that selenium could be playing a major role in the onset of cerebral vasospasm has come into the spotlight. This study focused on using newly established metallomics techniques in order to explore the proteome associated with CV and if selenium might affect the discovered proteins. Size exclusion chromatography coupled to inductively coupled plasma mass spectrometry, along with LC-MALDI-TOF/TOF were both essential in determining protein identifications in three different sample types; a control (normal, healthy patient, CSF control), SAH stroke patients (no vasospasm, CSF C) and SAH CV patients (CSF V). The results of this study, although preliminary, indicate the current methods are applicable and warrant further application to these clinically important targets.