Page 100 - ITPS-8-1

INNOSC Theranostics and
Pharmacological Sciences BDNF-AS biomarker in multiple sclerosis

3. Results

3.1. Demographics and disease characteristics in MS EDSS a 3.05±2.74 6.00±1.02 5.55±1.14 - -
subjects
When comparing age and sex across the disease groups
and the control group, no differences were observed,
indicating that all groups were age- and sex-matched.
Regarding family history of MS, only 2 cases (6.5%) within Frequency of relapses b,d 2±2 4±2 - - -
the RRMS group and 1 case (7.7%) within the SPMS
group reported a family history of the disease. The relapse/
remitting classification within the RRMS and SPMS
groups revealed 16 relapse RRMS cases, eight relapse
SPMS cases, 15 remitting RRMS cases, and five remitting
SPMS cases. The number of relapses within the past 3 years MS duration a 5.11±4.65 15.12±8.66 10.8±9.9 - -
(median ± interquartile range) was 2 ± 2 for RRMS and 4
± 2 for SPMS. The mean ± standard deviation of the EDSS
scores were 3.05 ± 2.74 for RRMS, 6.00 ± 1.02 for SPMS,
and 5.55 ± 1.14 for PPMS. The demographic and clinical
characteristics of all included subjects and controls are Remitting (%) 15 (48.4) 5 (38.5) - - -
summarized in Table 1.

3.2. Evaluation of glyceraldehyde-3-phosphate Status c
dehydrogenase as a suitable reference gene
The suitability of GAPDH as a reference control gene Relapse (%) 16 (51.6) 8 (61.5) - - -
was assessed by examining the average Ct across all MS
patients and healthy control volunteers. The mean Ct
values (± standard error [S.E.]) for GAPDH were as No (%) 29 (93.6) 12 (92.3) 10 (100) 20 (100) - Notes: a Mean±standard deviation; b Median±interquartile range; c Frequency; d Within the last 3 years. Abbreviations: EDSS: Expanded disability status scale; MS: Multiple sclerosis; PPMS: Primary
follows: 25.97 ± 0.058 for control samples, 23.69 ± 0.78
for PPMS, 24.59 ± 0.34 for RRMS-relapse, 24.58 ± 0.37 Family history c
for RRMS-remitting, 25.03 ± 0.74 for SPMS-relapse, and Yes (%) 2 (6.5) 1 (7.7) 0 (0) 0 (0) -
27.36 ± 0.49 for SPMS-remitting. The normality of the data
was confirmed using the non-parametric Shapiro–Wilk
and Kolmogorov–Smirnov tests, with P = 0.153 and 0.200,
respectively. A parametric one-way analysis of variance Female (%) 18 (58) 7 (54) 6 (60) 11 (55)
was conducted to examine differences in the Ct values Gender c 0.883
of GAPDH across all groups, revealing no statistically progressive multiple sclerosis; RRMS: Relapsing-remitting multiple sclerosis; SPMS: Secondary progressive multiple sclerosis.
significant differences (P = 0.068). These findings Male (%) 13 (42) 6 (46) 4 (40) 9 (45)
are illustrated in Figure 1, which shows the expression of Table 1. Disease characteristics and demographics of multiple sclerosis subjects and controls
GAPDH in all MS patient groups and healthy controls.

3.3. Relative expression of BDNF-AS
The lncRNA BDNF-AS was found to be significantly Age at onset a 25.68±7.54 31.23±7.67 34.30±4.16 - -
downregulated (P < 0.01) in MS patients compared to
control subjects. The fold change relative to the control
(mean ± S.E) was 0.19 ± 0.06 for PPMS, 0.33 ± 0.07 for
RRMS-relapse, 0.30 ± 0.08 for RRMS-remitting, 0.33 ± Age a 31.10±9.04 46.38±9.49 45.10±10.49 37.70±16.84 0.382
0.11 for SPMS-relapse, and 0.83 ± 0.20 for SPMS-remitting.
Multiple comparison tests revealed that all groups were
significantly different from the control, except for the
SPMS-remitting group, which showed no significant RRMS (n=31) PPMS (n=10) Control (n=20)
difference from the controls and exhibited the highest Group SPMS (n=13) P-value
expression among all groups. However, there were no

Volume 8 Issue 1 (2025) 94 doi: 10.36922/itps.4407