Aberrant levels of hematopoietic/neuronal growth and differentiation factors in euthyroid women at risk for autoimmune thyroid disease

Background Subjects at risk for major mood disorders have a higher risk to develop autoimmune thyroid disease (AITD) and vice-versa, implying a shared pathogenesis. In mood disorder patients, an abnormal profile of hematopoietic/neuronal growth factors is observed, suggesting that growth/differentiation abnormalities of these cell lineages may predispose to mood disorders. The first objective of our study was to investigate whether an aberrant profile of these hematopoietic/neuronal growth factors is also detectable in subjects at risk for AITD. A second objective was to study the inter relationship of these factors with previously determined and published growth factors/cytokines in the same subjects. Methods We studied 64 TPO-Ab-negative females with at least 1 first-or second-degree relative with AITD, 32 of whom did and 32 who did not seroconvert to TPO-Ab positivity in 5-year follow-up. Subjects were compared with 32 healthy controls (HCs). We measured serum levels of brain-derived neurotrophic factor (BDNF), Stem Cell Factor (SCF), Insulin-like Growth Factor-Binding Protein 2 (IGFBP-2), Epidermal Growth Factor (EGF) and IL-7 at baseline. Results BDNF was significantly lower (8.2 vs 18.9 ng/ml, P<0.001), while EGF (506.9 vs 307.6 pg/ml, P = 0.003) and IGFBP-2 (388.3 vs 188.5 ng/ml, P = 0.028) were significantly higher in relatives than in HCs. Relatives who seroconverted in the next 5 years had significantly higher levels of SCF than non-seroconverters (26.5 vs 16.7 pg/ml, P = 0.017). In a cluster analysis with the previously published growth factors/cytokines SCF clustered together with IL-1β, IL-6 and CCL-3, of which high levels also prec

Differential diagnosis in spinal and bulbar muscular atrophy clinical and molecular aspects

Kennedy disease is caused by an enlarged trinucleotide repeat sequence within the androgen receptor gene. We report here seven male patients with a benign motor neuron syndrome highly analogous to Kennedy disease but with a normal trinucleotide repeat