Plasma brain-derived neurotrophic factor in hemodialysis patients.

Objective: Brain-derived neurotrophic factor (BDNF) is a neurotrophin which modulates neuronal survival and proliferation. Recently, plasma BDNF is associated with inflammatory conditions. The present study was to investigate the changes of the plasma BDNF level in hemodialysis patients and to evaluate the relationship between the plasma BDNF and uremic inflammation.

Method: We measured the plasma BDNF, serum IL-2, IL-4, IFN-γ and TNF-α in hemodialysis patients and control subjects. In addition, we investigated the associations of the plasma BDNF with clinical or biochemical parameters.

Results: The plasma BDNF level was significantly higher in hemodialysis patients than in the control subjects (median, 312.3 vs. 630.3 pg/ml, p < 0.05). In subgroup analysis, hemodialysis patients with diabetes showed higher values of the plasma BDNF than the patients without diabetes. However, there were no significant differences in age and gender subgroups of the hemodialysis patients. The logBDNF was positively correlated with hs-CRP and IFN-γ, and negatively correlated with serum albumin. In multivariate regression analysis, the logBDNF was independently associated with the presence of diabetes (β-coefficient = 0.399, p = 0.041) and IFN-γ (β-coefficient = 0.538, p = 0.003).

Conclusion: The plasma BDNF may increase in hemodialysis patients, and more prominently in the patients with diabetes. Furthermore, the plasma BDNF might reflect inflammatory condition in hemodialysis patients.