title: Lipidomic investigations for the characterization of circulating serum lipids in multiple sclerosis.
abstract: Multiple Sclerosis (MS) is a neurodegenerative autoimmune demyelinating disease affecting young adults. The aetiology still remains a mystery and diagnosis is impaired by the lack of defined molecular markers. Autoimmune response remains the main topic under investigation and recent studies suggest additional non-proteic mediators of brain inflammation such as lipids. We carried out an LC-MS based lipidomics approach to highlight serum lipids profiling in MS. Method was optimised and applied in a preliminary clinical cross-sectional investigation of MS patients vs Healthy Controls (HC) and patients with Other Neurological Diseases (OND). Ten significant metabolites were highlighted and tentatively identified by accurate mass and MS/MS experiments. Our most relevant data show altered level of lyso-glycerophosphatidylcholine (lysoPC) and glycerophosphatidylcholine (PC) species. Total lysoPC/PC ratio showed significant decrease in pathological groups (MS, OND) and, in addition, MS subjects had a relevant decrease of this ratio also in respect to OND. These findings suggest that there may be an altered phospholipid metabolism in MS that can be evaluated in serum. Some of these features are distinctive and may be considered specific for MS. Our lipidomics data show, for the first time, evidence in serum of a relationship between LysoPC/PC ratio and MS.
authors.affiliation: Department of Biomedical Sciences, G. d'Annunzio University, Chieti-Pescara, Italy. p.delboccio@unich.it
authors.forename: Piero
authors.initials: P
authors.lastname: Del Boccio
authors.forename: Damiana
authors.initials: D
authors.lastname: Pieragostino
authors.forename: Maria
authors.initials: M
authors.lastname: Di Ioia
authors.forename: Francesca
authors.initials: F
authors.lastname: Petrucci
authors.forename: Alessandra
authors.initials: A
authors.lastname: Lugaresi
authors.forename: Giovanna
authors.initials: G
authors.lastname: De Luca
authors.forename: Domenico
authors.initials: D
authors.lastname: Gambi
authors.forename: Marco
authors.initials: M
authors.lastname: Onofrj
authors.forename: Carmine
authors.initials: C
authors.lastname: Di Ilio
authors.forename: Paolo
authors.initials: P
authors.lastname: Sacchetta
authors.forename: Andrea
authors.initials: A
authors.lastname: Urbani
mesh_terms: D000293:Adolescent; D000328:Adult; D005260:Female; D006801:Humans; D050356:Lipid Metabolism; D008244:Lysophosphatidylcholines / Q000097:blood*; D008297:Male; D013058:Mass Spectrometry / Q000379:methods; D008875:Middle Aged; D009103:Multiple Sclerosis / Q000097:blood*
chemical_list: D008244:Lysophosphatidylcholines