Analysis of cerebrospinal fluid of depressed patients

Analysis of protein patterns of cerebrospinal fluid (CSF) is of great diagnostic importance because it reflects the metabolic state of the brain in several diseases as well as under healthy conditions. The majority of CSF proteins are serum proteins, while only a small number are derived from the CNS.

Cases were in-patients with the diagnosis of a severe major depressive episode. Controls consisted of patients without a history of psychiatric illness that were admitted to the neurology ward for routine diagnosis. CSF proteins were separated by two dimensional (2D) gel electrophoresis. Differences in spot patterns were analyzed by the computer assisted program PDQUEST. Identification of proteins were done by mass spectrometry.

Preliminary evaluation of the data of our 2D analysis has shown both modest qualitative and quantitative differences in the protein patterns between cases and controls.

Several proteins were identified by mass spectrometry. Further analysis is on-going, focussing on the evaluation of the results.