Background: Gene expression profiling of human acute ischemic stroke (AIS) has the potential to identify a diagnostic panel for differential diagnosis of AIS early in the treatment phase.
Purpose: The objective of this dissertation was to identify peripheral blood biomarkers that could be further explored for use in differential diagnosis of AIS and the design of stroke therapeutics.
Methods: A prospective gene expression profiling study of 39 patients and 25 healthy controls was conducted. Peripheral blood samples were collected in Paxgene Blood RNA tubes from patients who were ≥18 years of age with MRI diagnosed AIS after differential diagnosis and controls who were Non-stroke neurologically healthy. In stroke patients, blood was redrawn 24 hours following onset of symptoms to determine changes in gene expression profiles over time. RNA was hybridized to Illumina humanRef-8v2 bead chips. Validation was performed using Taqman Gene expression polymerase chain reaction on significant targets.
Results: A nine gene profile has been identified for AIS. Five of these nine genes were identified in the previously published whole blood gene expression profiling study of stroke and therefore play a likely role in the response to AIS in humans. One of these nine genes (s100A12) was significantly associated with increasing age and therefore may be non-specific for stroke. Three genes were identified as the whole blood expression profile change over time (LY96, IL8, and SDPR). Pathway analysis revealed a robust innate immune response, with toll like receptor (TLR) signaling as a highly significant pathway present in the peripheral whole blood of AIS patients.
Conclusion: The findings of this study support the claim that gene expression profiling of peripheral whole blood can be used to identify diagnostic markers of AIS. A plausible case for innate immunity through the activation of TLR4 as a mediator of response to AIS has been made from the results of this study. This study and those conducted by Moore et al (2005) and Tang et al (2006) provide the foundation of data that support the use of peripheral whole blood for future blood profiling studies of neurological disease; which significantly opens the door of opportunity.
| Identifer | oai:union.ndltd.org:PITT/oai:PITTETD:etd-04242009-124645 |
| Date | 25 April 2009 |
| Creators | Barr, Taura Lynn |
| Contributors | Richard Henker, RN, PhD, Sheila Alexander, RN, PhD, Yvette Conley, PhD, Jinhui Ding, PhD, Andrew Singleton, PhD, Steven Warach, MD, PhD |
| Publisher | University of Pittsburgh |
| Source Sets | University of Pittsburgh |
| Language | English |
| Detected Language | English |
| Type | text |
| Format | application/pdf |
| Source | http://etd.library.pitt.edu/ETD/available/etd-04242009-124645/ |
| Rights | restricted, I hereby certify that, if appropriate, I have obtained and attached hereto a written permission statement from the owner(s) of each third party copyrighted matter to be included in my thesis, dissertation, or project report, allowing distribution as specified below. I certify that the version I submitted is the same as that approved by my advisory committee. I hereby grant to University of Pittsburgh or its agents the non-exclusive license to archive and make accessible, under the conditions specified below, my thesis, dissertation, or project report in whole or in part in all forms of media, now or hereafter known. I retain all other ownership rights to the copyright of the thesis, dissertation or project report. I also retain the right to use in future works (such as articles or books) all or part of this thesis, dissertation, or project report. |
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