title: Interleukin-12 and interferon-gamma are not detectable in the cerebrospinal fluid of patients with amyotrophic lateral sclerosis.
abstract: The cause of sporadic amyotrophic lateral sclerosis (SALS) is unknown. We investigated the immune-mediated inflammatory hypothesis of SALS by assaying interleukin-12 (IL-12), interleukin-6 (IL-6) and interferon-gamma (IFN-gamma) in the cerebrospinal fluid (CSF) of patients with SALS. These cytokines were measured in the CSF from patients with SALS (n=11), patients with immune-mediated inflammatory central nervous system or nerve root disorders (n=12), and patients with other neurological diseases (n=15) by high sensitivity sandwich enzyme linked immunosorbent assay (ELISA). All samples were below the assay detection limits of 0.5 pg/ml for IL-12 and 8 pg/ml for IFN-gamma. There was no difference between the groups in the mean concentration of IL-6. There is no evidence in cerebrospinal fluid for induction of a T(H)1 immune response in SALS.
authors.affiliation: Northern Clinical School, Faculty of Medicine, University of Sydney, Australia.
authors.forename: Lara
authors.initials: L
authors.lastname: Ford
authors.forename: Dominic
authors.initials: D
authors.lastname: Rowe
mesh_terms: D000328:Adult; D000368:Aged; D000690:Amyotrophic Lateral Sclerosis / Q000134:cerebrospinal fluid*; D000704:Analysis of Variance; D005260:Female; D006801:Humans; D007371:Interferon-gamma / Q000134:cerebrospinal fluid*; D018664:Interleukin-12 / Q000134:cerebrospinal fluid*; D015850:Interleukin-6 / Q000134:cerebrospinal fluid; D008297:Male; D008875:Middle Aged; D018709:Statistics, Nonparametric
chemical_list: D015850:Interleukin-6; D018664:Interleukin-12; D007371:Interferon-gamma