Cerebrospinal Fluid Proteomic Profiles in Patients with Postherpetic Neuralgia, 2023, Chen et al.

Cerebrospinal Fluid Proteomic Profiles in Patients with Postherpetic Neuralgia
Kai Chen; Meng Wang; Dongju Long; Dingquan Zou; Xin Li; Ruixuan Wang; Yaping Wang; Lin Yang

The intrinsic mechanism of postherpetic neuralgia (PHN) remains unclear. Herein, we aimed to seek the hub proteins in the cerebrospinal fluid (CSF), which display significant changes between the PHN and nonpainful patients (Control).

First, the proteomic results showed that compared with the Control-CSF, there were 100 upregulated and 50 downregulated differentially expressed proteins (DEPs) in the PHN-CSF. Besides, functional analyses including gene ontology (GO), Kyoto Encyclopedia of Genes and Genomes (KEGG), and gene set enrichment analysis (GSEA) revealed that biological processes and pathways including complement activation, infection, coagulation, and lipid metabolism were activated, while synaptic organization was suppressed.

Next, the protein–protein interaction (PPI) analysis indicated that increased PLG, F2, APOA1, APOA2, SERPINC1, and KNG1 and reduced APOE, which were all enriched in the top pathways according to the KEGG analysis, were defined as hub proteins. Finally, three of the hub proteins, such as PLG, APOA1, and APOE, were reconfirmed in a larger cohort using both enzyme-linked immunosorbent assay (ELISA) and Western blotting methods.

Above all, the results indicated that PLG, APOA1, and APOE and their involved processes such as infection, inflammation, cholesterol metabolism, and coagulation shall be potential therapeutic approaches.

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