Dear Mr. Chaturverdi

This is a article which is about neuroinflammation biomarkers that may help you:

https://link.springer.com/article/10.1134/S1819712410010101

hope it will be helpful.

Hi Abhisheck,

In our lab we use 3 markers to identify a neurological insult (S-100B, NSE and GFAP) and can be identified using ELISA. S-100B is a well defined marker in TBI studies; a limitation of this marker is it is also found to be expressed in adipocytes, chondrocytes and melanocytes. Because of this, we also look at NSE and GFAP. A limitation for NSE is it can also be found in RBCs and platelets, it's important to remember this as some injury models can result in hemolyzed blood.

In clinical studies, S-100B and GFAP have both shown to be good predictors of mortality (Pelinka et al. 2004; Nylen et al. 2006); as previously mentioned, our lab uses both of these markers as well as NSE. I've included a couple of papers that may help you in deciding what markers are appropriate for your investigations.

Article Blood Biomarkers for Brain Injury: What Are We Measuring?

Article Biomarkers of Blast-Induced Neurotrauma: Profiling Molecular...

Please consider Glial fibrillary acidic protein (GFAP). It is not definitely neuroinflammation specific but is related to glial cells. We previously found good data in stroke patients.

Dear Ali

Thank you for your response.

@ G. Andrew Pratt III ..Thank you for sharing the details and giving your insight. I appreciate your help. I was just wondering, when we talk about a marker in the peripheral blood which can depict the insult in the brain, serum would be a better sample to work with as in ELISA or whole blood to be used in Flow cytometry.

Ruslan Sydorchuk ..Thank you for your response. We were bit skeptical about GFAP due to its expression on many other cells. We were attempting to use Flow cytometry to see the expression of these proteins on different the cell surface.

Abhishek Chaturvedi,

Glad I could be of assistance. Finding a neurological marker in peripheral blood such as GFAP can suggest an injury or dysregulation of the blood brain barrier. Flow cytometry can confirm this by looking at surface and intracellular markers for certain populations of cellular activation, necrosis, etc. Both analyses complement each other, each one alone can make the suggestion of a neurological insult, but together make a stronger argument for what is/has taken place. We use other modalities such as transcranial Doppler, NIRS, indwelling pressure monitors, histology and flow cytometry to make strong arguments for our findings. It’s dependent upon your needs as an investigator. Clinically, you may want non-invasive techniques such as NIRS, transcranial Doppler, CT, etc. as well as ELISA to support your evidence. Again, an ELISA or Flow data alone is enough to suggest, but it is always good to have further supporting evidence.