The Identification of Blood Biomarkers of Chronic Neuropathic Pain by Comparative Transcriptomics

In this study, we recruited 50 chronic pain (neuropathic and nociceptive) and 43 pain-free controls to identify specific blood biomarkers of chronic neuropathic pain (CNP). Affymetrix microarray was carried out on a subset of samples selected 10 CNP and 10 pain-free control participants. The most significant genes were cross-validated using the entire dataset by quantitative real-time PCR (qRT-PCR). In comparative analysis of controls and CNP patients,WLS(P = 4.80 × 10–7),CHPT1 (P = 7.74 × 10–7) andCASP5 (P = 2.30 × 10–5) were highly significant, whilstFGFBP2 (P = 0.00162),STAT1 (P = 0.00223),FCRL6 (P = 0.00335),MYC (P = 0.00335),XCL2 (P = 0.0144) andGZMA (P = 0.0168) were significant in all CNP patients. A three-arm comparative analysis was also carried out with control as the reference group and CNP samples differentiated into two groups of high and low S-LANSS score using a cut-off of 12.STAT1,XCL2 andGZMA were not significant butKIR3DL2 (P = 0.00838),SH2D1B (P = 0.00295) andCXCR31 (P = 0.0136) were significant in CNP high S-LANSS group (S-LANSS score >  12), along withWLS (P = 8.40 × 10–5),CHPT1 (P = 7.89 × 10–4), CASP5 (P = 0.00393), FGFBP2 (P = 8.70 × 10–4) andFCRL6 (P = 0.00199), suggesting involvement of immune pathways in CNP mechanisms. None of the genes was significant in CNP samples with low (<  12) S-LANSS score. The area under the receiver op...
Source: NeuroMolecular Medicine - Category: Neurology Source Type: research