The serum of dysautonomia patients enhances proliferation and signaling in Schwann cells

Disorders of the autonomic nervous system, or dysautonomias, affect a large segment of the population, especially women, and represent a diagnostic challenge. Identification of biomarkers for autonomic disorders, and the subsequent development of screening methods, would benefit diagnosis and sympto...

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Bibliographic Details
Published in:Neuroscience letters 2010-01, Vol.468 (2), p.130-135
Main Authors: Lambrecht, Rein H., Pollard, Katherine A., Alshekhlee, Amer, Chelimsky, Thomas C., Berti-Mattera, Liliana N.
Format: Article
Language:English
Subjects:
Adult
Aged
Biological and medical sciences
Biological Factors - blood
Cell Proliferation
Cells, Cultured
Dysautonomias
Enzyme Activation
Extracellular Signal-Regulated MAP Kinases - metabolism
Female
Fundamental and applied biological sciences. Psychology
Gender
Human serum
Humans
Immunoglobulin G - blood
Male
Middle Aged
Mitogen-Activated Protein Kinases - metabolism
p38 Mitogen-Activated Protein Kinases - metabolism
Primary Dysautonomias - blood
Proto-Oncogene Proteins c-akt - metabolism
Schwann cell proliferation
Schwann Cells - cytology
Schwann Cells - enzymology
Serum
Sex Factors
Signal Transduction
Vertebrates: nervous system and sense organs
Young Adult
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Summary:Disorders of the autonomic nervous system, or dysautonomias, affect a large segment of the population, especially women, and represent a diagnostic challenge. Identification of biomarkers for autonomic disorders, and the subsequent development of screening methods, would benefit diagnosis and symptom management. We studied the effect of sera from fifteen well-characterized dysautonomia patients (mean age 49 ± 16 years, 10 females, 5 males) and ten control subjects (mean age 31 ± 14 years, 5 females, 5 males) on the proliferation of cultured Schwann cells and activity of mitogen-activated protein kinases (MAPKs) in these cells. We correlated characteristics of patients with the effects on cell proliferation and signaling. Overall, we observed a significant increase in proliferation when Schwann cells were incubated with sera from female dysautonomia patients when compared to control subjects and male patients. Interestingly, removal of IgGs significantly reduced the proliferative effect of patient sera. We also observed significant activation of p38 MAPK following incubation with both male and female patient sera. These results suggest that patient sera contain factors that contribute to aberrant Schwann cell proliferation and signaling and may ultimately lead to autonomic nerve dysfunction. Our observations represent a promising first step in the identification of dysautonomia biomarkers.
ISSN:0304-3940
1872-7972
DOI:10.1016/j.neulet.2009.10.083