Biomarkers research in neuromuscular disease Charcot-Marie-Tooth

Charcot-Marie-Tooth disease (CMT) (ORPHA166) is the most frequent hereditary neuropathy. CMT is a heterogeneous group of disorders which, despite some variability in their clinical features, share the same general phenotype, usually characterized by wasting and weakness of distal limb muscles, decreased to absent deep tendon reflexes, distal sensory loss, and frequent skeletal deformities. Despite the clinical and molecular description of this disease in the last 20 years, there is no effective drug or advanced therapy available. Here we have pretend the identification of metabolic and oxidative stress biomarkers in plasmas from patients with duplication at PMP22 gene, the most frequent mutation causing CMT, and clinically characterized as CMT1A. The samples were collected in the neuropathy units from "La Fe" Hospital of Valencia, "Bellvitge" Hospital of Barcelona, "La Paz" Hospital of Madrid, and "Virgen del Rocío" Hospital of Sevilla. The metabolic biomarkers research was performed using 2D-DIGE analysis (Typhoon TRIO, GE) and DeCyder software (GE). Protein identification was made by mass spectrometry by MALDI-TOF-TOF (ABSciex) and liquid Chromatography analysis (ABSciex). The oxidative stress biomarkers research consisted in carbonylated proteins analysis by reaction with DNPH and Dot-blot. Total antioxidant capacity and GSSG/GSH ratio were analyzed with Antioxidant Assay kit (Cayman) and Glutathione Fluorescent detection Kit (Arbor Assays), respectively. Finally now we are performing the MDA levels by HPLC-UV. We found 8, 13 and 36 proteins with differential expression in mild, moderate and severely affected patients, respectively compared with their own matched controls. Also we found differences on oxidative stress parameters between de different groups analyzed. Our results suggest differences in the oxidative stress profile between the studied phenotypes in CMT1A patients.