Development of protein biomarkers in cerebrospinal fluid for secondary progressive multiple sclerosis using selected reaction monitoring mass spectrometry (SRM-MS)

Yan Jia, Tianxia Wu, Christine A Jelinek, Bibiana Bielekova, Linda Chang, Scott Newsome, Sharmilee Gnanapavan, Gavin Giovannoni, Dawn Chen, Peter A Calabresi, Avindra Nath, Robert J Cotter

Multiple sclerosis (MS) is a chronic inflammatory disorder of the central nervous system (CNS). It involves damage to the myelin sheath surrounding axons and to the axons themselves. MS most often presents with a series of relapses and remissions but then evolves over a variable period of time into a slowly progressive form of neurological dysfunction termed secondary progressive MS (SPMS). The reasons for this change in clinical presentation are unclear. The absence of a diagnostic marker means that there is a lag time of several years before the diagnosis of SPMS can be established. At the same time, understanding the mechanisms that underlie SPMS is critical to the development of rational therapies for this untreatable stage of the disease.