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The evidence for a role of vasospasm in the pathogenesis of cerebral malaria.

ABSTRACT: Due to delay in treatment, cerebral malaria (CM) remains a significant complication of Plasmodium falciparum infection and is a common cause of death from malaria. In addition, more than 10 % of children surviving CM have neurological and long-term cognitive deficits. Understanding the pathogenesis of CM enables design of supportive treatment, reducing neurological morbidity and mortality. Vaso-occlusion and brain swelling appear to be leading to clinical features, neuronal damage and death in CM. It is proposed that parasitized red blood cells (pRBC), due to cytoadhesion to the endothelium and vasospasm induced by reduced bioavailability of nitric oxide, are causes. Stasis of blood flow and accumulation of pRBC may allow, after schizont rupture, for high concentration of products of haemolysis to accumulate, which leads to localized nitric oxide depletion, inducing adhesion molecules and cerebral vasospasm. Features consistent with an involvement of vasospasm are rapid reversibility of neurological symptoms, intermittently increased or absent flow in medium cerebral artery detectable on Doppler ultrasound and hemispheric reversible changes on cerebral magnetic resonance imaging in some patients. Clinical trials of treatment that can rapidly reduce cerebral vasospasm, including nitric oxide donors, inhaled nitric oxide, endothelin or calcium antagonists, or tissue plasminogen activators, are warranted.

SUBMITTER: Eisenhut M

PROVIDER: S-EPMC4603731 | biostudies-other | 2015 Oct

REPOSITORIES: biostudies-other

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The evidence for a role of vasospasm in the pathogenesis of cerebral malaria.

Eisenhut Michael M

Malaria journal 20151013

Due to delay in treatment, cerebral malaria (CM) remains a significant complication of Plasmodium falciparum infection and is a common cause of death from malaria. In addition, more than 10 % of children surviving CM have neurological and long-term cognitive deficits. Understanding the pathogenesis of CM enables design of supportive treatment, reducing neurological morbidity and mortality. Vaso-occlusion and brain swelling appear to be leading to clinical features, neuronal damage and death in C ...[more]

PMID: 26463364

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Project description:IntroductionCerebral malaria is one of the most severe manifestations of malaria and is a leading cause of acquired neurodisability in African children. Recent studies suggest acute kidney injury (AKI) is a risk factor for brain injury in cerebral malaria. The present study evaluates potential mechanisms of brain injury in cerebral malaria by evaluating changes in cerebrospinal fluid measures of brain injury with respect to severe malaria complications. Specifically, we attempt to delineate mechanisms of injury focusing on blood-brain-barrier integrity and acute metabolic changes that may underlie kidney-brain crosstalk in severe malaria.MethodsWe evaluated 30 cerebrospinal fluid (CSF) markers of inflammation, oxidative stress, and brain injury in 168 Ugandan children aged 18 months to 12 years hospitalized with cerebral malaria. Eligible children were infected with Plasmodium falciparum and had unexplained coma. Acute kidney injury (AKI) on admission was defined using the Kidney Disease: Improving Global Outcomes criteria. We further evaluated blood-brain-barrier integrity and malaria retinopathy, and electrolyte and metabolic complications in serum.ResultsThe mean age of children was 3.8 years (SD, 1.9) and 40.5% were female. The prevalence of AKI was 46.3% and multi-organ dysfunction was common with 76.2% of children having at least one organ system affected in addition to coma. AKI and elevated blood urea nitrogen, but not other measures of disease severity (severe coma, seizures, jaundice, acidosis), were associated with increases in CSF markers of impaired blood-brain-barrier function, neuronal injury (neuron-specific enolase, tau), excitatory neurotransmission (kynurenine), as well as altered nitric oxide bioavailability and oxidative stress (p < 0.05 after adjustment for multiple testing). Further evaluation of potential mechanisms suggested that AKI may mediate or be associated with CSF changes through blood-brain-barrier disruption (p = 0.0014), ischemic injury seen by indirect ophthalmoscopy (p < 0.05), altered osmolality (p = 0.0006) and through alterations in the amino acids transported into the brain.ConclusionIn children with cerebral malaria, there is evidence of kidney-brain injury with multiple potential pathways identified. These changes were specific to the kidney and not observed in the context of other clinical complications.

Project description:The diagnosis of cerebral vasospasm after Subarachnoid-Hemorrhage is currently very difficult, additional tools such as blood biomarkers are necessary. We tested the ability of gene expression profiles of blood cells to predict vasospasm. 32 patients suffering subarachnoid-hemorrhage were included in this prospective monocentre study. They were grouped according to have a complicated cerebral vasospasm (Vasospasm) or not (Control) and Paired according to age (+/- 10 years), sex, Fisher grade (+/- 1), location, smoking (at least 3 first parameters). Gene expression profiles of blood cells were determined using 25,000~gene microarray. Blood sample: 2.5 mL harvested in PAXgene® Blood RNA tubes (PreAnalytix) RNA extraction: PAXgene® Blood RNA kit (Qiagen). We used a Universel Reference RNA (Stratagene). RNA amplification and labelling: kit Amino Allyl MessageAmp II (Ambion). We hybridized 4 microarrays per patient using pangenomic microarrays from the "Réseau National des Génopôles" (Illkirch, France). 2 slides were hybridized with reference RNA labelled Cy3 and patient RNA labelled Cy5, and 2 slides were hybridized with reference RNA labelled Cy5 and patient RNA labelled Cy3. Hybridation : Agilent protocol with few modifications : 750 ng of each labelled RNA were hubriddized at 60°C during 17 hours in an Aglient hybridization oven. After washings, Slides were scanned with a GenePix 4000B scanner (Molecular Devices). Image intensity data were extracted with GenePix Pro 6.0 analysis software. Quantification of Cy3 and Cy5 and selection of good spots were performed using the MAIA software (Novikov E and Barillot E. Software package for automatic microarray image analysis (MAIA). The ACUITY software was then used to normalize log ratios Cy3/Cy5 with Lowess non linear normalization, to filter out genes not present in at least 3 slides out of 4, to evaluate the reproducibility of the 4 microarrays of each patient (hierarchical clustering, Self Organizing Maps). Statistical analyses to insure reproducibility was performed using Excel (correlation coefficients, ANOVA). Only slides that passed all reprocubility tests were validated.

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The evidence for a role of vasospasm in the pathogenesis of cerebral malaria.

Publications

The evidence for a role of vasospasm in the pathogenesis of cerebral malaria.

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