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Biomarkers for ALS disease progression
Author(s) -
Bowser Robert,
Ryberg Henrik,
Darko Sam,
An Jiyan,
Wilson Meghan,
Lacomis David
Publication year - 2008
Publication title -
the faseb journal
Language(s) - English
Resource type - Journals
SCImago Journal Rank - 1.709
H-Index - 277
eISSN - 1530-6860
pISSN - 0892-6638
DOI - 10.1096/fasebj.22.1_supplement.173.6
Subject(s) - amyotrophic lateral sclerosis , medicine , disease , multiple sclerosis , cerebrospinal fluid , clinical trial , surrogate endpoint , pathology , oncology , immunology
Amyotrophic lateral sclerosis (ALS) is a fatal neurodegenerative disease resulting from a loss of motor neurons in the brain and spinal cord. ALS is a rapidly progressive disease, with the typical time from diagnosis till death of 2–5 years. There are no current diagnostic tests for ALS or surrogate markers of disease progression. Surrogate markers of ALS disease progression would be valuable measurements for drug efficacy in clinical trials and also identify new targets for drug therapy. To identify protein biomarkers that correlate to clinical measurements of disease progression, we prospectively collected cerebrospinal fluid (CSF) and blood plasma every 6 months from 25 ALS patients. We also collected CSF and plasma from control subjects over a 2‐year time frame. ELISA and mass spectrometry were used to identify protein alterations that correlate to disease progression. We identified protein alterations that correlate to clinical parameters of disease progression within ALS patients, and also proteins that identified subpopulations of ALS patients based on site of disease onset.