Increased cerebrospinal fluid fibrinogen in major depressive disorder

• Published in: Scientific reports 2015-06, Vol.5 (1), p.11412-11412, Article 11412
• Main Authors: Hattori, Kotaro, Ota, Miho, Sasayama, Daimei, Yoshida, Sumiko, Matsumura, Ryo, Miyakawa, Tomoko, Yokota, Yuuki, Yamaguchi, Shinobu, Noda, Takamasa, Teraishi, Toshiya, Hori, Hiroaki, Higuchi, Teruhiko, Kohsaka, Shinichi, Goto, Yu-ichi, Kunugi, Hiroshi
• Format: Article
• Language: English
• Subjects: 59/57; 631/378/1341; 692/53/2421; 692/699/476/1414; 82/1; Aptamers; Brain - pathology; Case-Control Studies; Cerebrospinal fluid; Depressive Disorder, Major - cerebrospinal fluid; Depressive Disorder, Major - diagnosis; Diffusion Magnetic Resonance Imaging; Enzyme-linked immunosorbent assay; Female; Fibrinogen; Fibrinogen - cerebrospinal fluid; Health risk assessment; Humanities and Social Sciences; Humans; Magnetic resonance imaging; Male; Mental depression; multidisciplinary; Prenatal development; Science; Substantia alba; White Matter - pathology
• ISSN: 2045-2322; 2045-2322
• DOI: 10.1038/srep11412

Major depressive disorder (MDD) presumably includes heterogeneous subgroups with differing pathologies. To obtain a marker reflecting such a subgroup, we analyzed the cerebrospinal fluid (CSF) levels of fibrinogen, which has been reported to be elevated in the plasma of patients with MDD. Three fibrinogen-related proteins were measured using aptamer-based analyses and CSF samples of 30 patients with MDD and 30 controls. The numbers of patients with an excessively high level (>99 percentile of the controls) was significantly increased (17 to 23%). Measurement reproducibility of these results was confirmed by an ELISA for fibrinogen (Pearson’s r = 0.77). In an independent sample set from 36 patients and 30 controls, using the ELISA, results were similar (22%). When these two sample sets were combined, the number of patients with a high fibrinogen level was significantly increased (15/66; odds ratio 8.53; 95% confidence interval 1.9–39.1, p = 0.0011). By using diffusion tensor imaging, we found white matter tracts abnormalities in patients with a high fibrinogen level but not those patients with a normal fibrinogen level, compared with controls. Plasma fibrinogen levels were similar among the diagnostic groups. Our results point to a subgroup of MDD represented by increased CSF fibrinogen and white matter tract abnormalities.