Skip to main page content
U.S. flag

An official website of the United States government

Dot gov

The .gov means it’s official.
Federal government websites often end in .gov or .mil. Before sharing sensitive information, make sure you’re on a federal government site.

Https

The site is secure.
The https:// ensures that you are connecting to the official website and that any information you provide is encrypted and transmitted securely.

Access keys NCBI Homepage MyNCBI Homepage Main Content Main Navigation
. 2025 Jan 12;17(1):89.
doi: 10.3390/v17010089.

CXCL-10 in Cerebrospinal Fluid Detects Neuroinflammation in HTLV-1-Associated Myelopathy with High Accuracy

Samya Jezine Da Silva  1 , Mauro Jorge Cabral-Castro  2 , Luiz Claudio Faria  3 , Carolina Rosadas  4 , Maria Fernanda Lopes de Araújo  5 , Ana Caroline Soares Dutra  5 , Yoshihisa Yamano  6 , Graham Taylor  4 , Marzia Puccioni-Sohler  1   3   5
Affiliations

CXCL-10 in Cerebrospinal Fluid Detects Neuroinflammation in HTLV-1-Associated Myelopathy with High Accuracy

Samya Jezine Da Silva et al. Viruses. .

Abstract

Background and objectives: HTLV-1-associated myelopathy (HAM) is a chronic progressive inflammatory disease of the spinal cord. This study assesses the diagnostic accuracy of the neuroinflammatory biomarkers neopterin and cysteine-X-cysteine motif chemokine ligand 10 (CXCL-10) in cerebrospinal fluid (CSF) for HAM.

Methods: CSF samples from 75 patients with neurological disorders-33 with HAM (Group A), 19 HTLV-1-seronegative with other neuroinflammatory diseases (Group B), and 23 HTLV-1-seronegative with non-neuroinflammatory diseases (Group C)-were retrospectively evaluated. CSF examination included routine analysis, neopterin, and CXCL-10. The diagnostic potential of the biomarkers was evaluated using receiver operating characteristic curves.

Results: Higher white cell counts and concentrations of protein, neopterin, and CXCL-10 in CSF were detected in group A (patients with HAM) and group B (p < 0.05). Neopterin showed good accuracy for HAM (A) (cut-off 15 nmol/L, 80% sensitivity, 74% specificity) and other neuroinflammation (group B) (cut-off 20 nmol/L, 79% sensitivity, 83% specificity). CXCL-10 demonstrated the highest accuracy in both groups, with Group A (cut-off 110 pg/mL, 97% sensitivity, 96% specificity) and Group B (cut-off 220 pg/mL, 100% sensitivity, 100% specificity).

Conclusions: Neopterin and CXCL-10 in CSF are accurate biomarkers for detecting neuroinflammation, including HAM. CXCL-10, in particular, is the superior biomarker for both chronic and acute neuroinflammatory diseases.

Keywords: CXCL-10; HTLV-1-associated myelopathy; accuracy; biomarker; cerebrospinal fluid; diagnosis; neopterin.

PubMed Disclaimer

Conflict of interest statement

On behalf of all authors, the corresponding author declares that there are no conflicts of interest.

Figures

Figure 1
Figure 1
CSF characteristic differences among the three groups (HAM, Inflammatory, and Non-Inflammatory groups). CSF characteristics were compared using Kruskal–Wallis ANOVA, followed by Dunn’s multiple comparison test.
Figure 2
Figure 2
Receiver Operator Characteristic (ROC) curve for neopterin and CXCL-10 in CSF. Differentiating between HAM neuroinflammatory groups relative to the non-neuroinflammatory control group in (A,B), and between HAM and inflammatory groups in (C).
See this image and copyright information in PMC

Similar articles

See all similar articles

References

    1. Poiesz B.J., Ruscetti F.W., Gazdar A.F., Bunn P.A., Minna J.D., Gallo R.C. Detection and isolation of type C retrovirus particles from fresh and cultured lymphocytes of a patient with cutaneous T-cell lymphoma. Proc. Natl. Acad. Sci. USA. 1980;77:7415–7419. doi: 10.1073/pnas.77.12.7415. - DOI - PMC - PubMed
    1. Gessain A., Cassar O. Epidemiological Aspects and World Distribution of HTLV-1 Infection. Front. Microbiol. 2012;3:388. doi: 10.3389/fmicb.2012.00388. - DOI - PMC - PubMed
    1. Eusebio-Ponce E., Anguita E., Paulino-Ramirez R., Candel F.J. HTLV-1 infection: An emerging risk. Pathogenesis, epidemi-ology, diagnosis and associated diseases. Rev. Esp. Quimioter. 2019;32:485–496. - PMC - PubMed
    1. Enose-Akahata Y., Jacobson S. Immunovirological biomarkers in HTLV-1-associated myelopathy/tropical spastic para-paresis (HAM/TSP) Retrovirology. 2019;16:35. doi: 10.1186/s12977-019-0499-5. - DOI - PMC - PubMed
    1. Mashkani B., Jalili Nik M., Rezaee S.A., Boostani R. Advances in the treatment of human T-cell lymphotropic virus type-I associated myelopathy. Expert. Rev. Neurother. 2023;23:1233–1248. doi: 10.1080/14737175.2023.2272639. - DOI - PubMed

Publication types

MeSH terms

LinkOut - more resources