Several articles have pointed out that there is an unknown neurotoxic agent in the CSF of MS patients. Cultures of neurons in vitro can be killed by the CSF of MS patients. But the unknown agent has remained elusive. Some people pointed to auto-antibodies, inmunoglobulins (IgG) , viruses, or chemical substances like cytokines.
It seems that a research group has found a new possible cause. The new suspects are a group of molecules known as ceramides. They have tried two of them, present in MS (C16:0 and C24:0) and neuron cultures have reacted.
http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/24893707
Cerebrospinal fluid ceramides from patients with multiple sclerosis impair neuronal bioenergetics.
Abstract
Axonal damage is a prominent cause of disability and yet its pathogenesis is incompletely understood. Using a xenogeneic system, here we define the bioenergetic changes induced in rat neurons by exposure to cerebrospinal fluid samples from patients with multiple sclerosis compared to control subjects.
A first discovery cohort of cerebrospinal fluid from 13 patients with multiple sclerosis and 10 control subjects showed that acute exposure to cerebrospinal fluid from patients with multiple sclerosis induced oxidative stress and decreased expression of neuroprotective genes, while increasing expression of genes involved in lipid signalling and in the response to oxidative stress.
Protracted exposure of neurons to stress led to neurotoxicity and bioenergetics failure after cerebrospinal fluid exposure and positively correlated with the levels of neurofilament light chain. These findings were validated using a second independent cohort of cerebrospinal fluid samples (eight patients with multiple sclerosis and eight control subjects), collected at a different centre.
The toxic effect of cerebrospinal fluid on neurons was not attributable to differences in IgG content, glucose, lactate or glutamate levels or differences in cytokine levels. A lipidomic profiling approach led to the identification of increased levels of ceramide C16:0 and C24:0 in the cerebrospinal fluid from patients with multiple sclerosis. Exposure of cultured neurons to micelles composed of these ceramide species was sufficient to recapitulate the bioenergetic dysfunction and oxidative damage induced by exposure to cerebrospinal fluid from patients with multiple sclerosis. Therefore, our data suggest that C16:0 and C24:0 ceramides are enriched in the cerebrospinal fluid of patients with multiple sclerosis and are sufficient to induce neuronal mitochondrial dysfunction and axonal damage.
Ceramides in MS
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Re: Ceramides in MS
I wish this article were written in English. I didn't get a word of that. So are they saying these circulating lipid thingys are what is causing nerve cell death in CSF. If so, what are these things are where do they come from? A wikipedia search shows that they could be related to the stress response. Is this a lipid problem somehow related to fat intake in the diet or metabolism? A google search shows that they are in lotion and shampoo. These things are on the skin. So what does this mean? Caused by cosmetics?
Re: Ceramides in MS
Basically they say that they have found two special ceramides in the CSF, named 16:0 and 24:0. They are not normal ceramides.jerrygallow wrote:I wish this article were written in English. I didn't get a word of that. So are they saying these circulating lipid thingys are what is causing nerve cell death in CSF. If so, what are these things are where do they come from? A wikipedia search shows that they could be related to the stress response. Is this a lipid problem somehow related to fat intake in the diet or metabolism? A google search shows that they are in lotion and shampoo. These things are on the skin. So what does this mean? Caused by cosmetics?
They don't say anything about their origin, but I doubt that is something we can control. Probably they appear in a metabolic reaction of the brain cells.
The good news if that if this things are the culprit probably can be removed from the CSF.