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Is amyloid involved in acute neuroinflammation? A CSF analysis in encephalitis
Alessandro Padovani1, Antonio Canale2, Lorenzo Schiavon2
1Neurology Unit, Department of Clinical and Experimental Sciences, University of Brescia, Brescia, Italy.
Introduction:
Several investigations have argued for a strong relationship between neuroinflammation and amyloid metabolism but it is still unclear whether inflammation exerts a pro-amyloidogenic effect, amplifies the neurotoxic effect of amyloid, or is protective.
Methods:
Forty-two patients with acute encephalitis (ENC) and 18 controls underwent an extended cerebrospinal fluid (CSF) panel of inflammatory, amyloid (Aβ40, 42, and 38, sAPP-α, sAPP-β), glial, and neuronal biomarkers. Linear and non-linear correlations between CSF biomarkers were evaluated studying conditional independence relationships.
Results:
CSF levels of inflammatory cytokines and neuronal/glial markers were higher in ENC compared to controls, whereas the levels of amyloid-related markers did not differ. Inflammatory markers were not associated with amyloid markers but exhibited a correlation with glial and neuronal markers in conditional independence analysis.
Discussion:
By an extensive CSF biomarkers analysis, this study showed that an acute neuroinflammation state, which is associated with glial activation and neuronal damage, does not influence amyloid homeostasis.
