Biomarkers of Neuromyelitis Optica Other than Aquaporin 4 Antibody
Bum Chun Suh, MD
Department of Neurology, Kangbuk Samsung Hospital, Sungkyunkwan University School of Medicine, Seoul, Korea
Neuromyelitis optica (NMO) is a central nervous system inflammatory disease with humoral autoimmune pathogenesis, characteristically involving optic nerve and spinal cord. Until the identification of NMO IgG/AQP4 Ab, there was some confusion about the nature of this disease, whether NMO is an extreme phenomenon of multiple sclerosis (MS) or NMO/MS is a different disease. Recently, NMO IgG/AQP4 Ab explains many aspects of NMO: different pathomechanism from MS, site and character of brain and spinal cord lesions, CSF elevation of astrocyte markers, aggravation of disease after IFN-β which is standard preventive treatment of MS, and therapeutic effect of B-cell targeted therapy. This review presents recent update of biomarkers other than NMO IgG/AQP4 such as BAFF (B-cell activating factor of the TNF family), IL-6, and astrocyte makers (GFAP, S100B), and it would be helpful to understand clinical usefulness of cerebrospinal fluid and serological markers associated with NMO.
Journal of Multiple Sclerosis 2(2):40-44, 2011
