Bacterial neurotoxic metabolites in multiple sclerosis cerebrospinal fluid and plasma.

The identification of intestinal dysbiosis in patients with neurological and psychiatric disorders has highlighted the importance of gut-brain communication, and yet the question regarding the identity of the components responsible for this cross-talk remains open. We previously reported that relapsing remitting multiple sclerosis patients treated with dimethyl fumarate have a prominent depletion of the gut microbiota, thereby suggesting that studying the composition of plasma and CSF samples from these patients may help to identify microbially derived metabolites. We used a functional xenogeneic assay consisting of cultured rat neurons exposed to CSF samples collected from multiple sclerosis patients before and after dimethyl fumarate treatment to assess neurotoxicity and then conducted a metabolomic analysis of plasma and CSF samples to identify metabolites with differential abundance.

Neurofilament light chain as an indicator of exacerbation prior to clinical symptoms in multiple sclerosis.

Background: Biomarkers may be a sensitive measure of disease activity in patients with multiple sclerosis (pwMS).

Objective: A pwMS had a marked increase of neurofilament light chain (NfL) in CSF 9-weeks prior to a clinical exacerbation.

Methods And Results: Brain MRI, CSF, EDSS were measured at baseline, 6 weeks and 28 weeks.