Cerebrospinal fluid biomarkers for early diagnosis and risk stratification of CNS infections

About this project

Infections of the CNS can often not be differentiated well from non-infectious inflammatory diseases, and pathogen detection is variably efficient, depending on the assay, the pathogen and the time of lumbar puncture with respect to the onset of infection. In collaboration with the MHH Dept. of Neurology (T. Skripuletz, K.-W. Sühs), we are analyzing cerebrospinal fluid samples to identify small molecule (metabolite) biomarkers for risk stratification and early diagnosis of patients with suspected infections of the CNS. A second goal is to identify metabolic pathways that are involved in CNS cell damage during infections. We initially studied reactivation of chickenpox virus (varicella-zoster virus, VZV), as this disease may span the spectrum from mild segmental zoster (shingles) to a life-threatening encephalitis. We have expanded this project to herpes simplex viruses (HSV), enteroviruses, coronaviruses, and to bacterial CNS infections. Our current focus is on identifying biomarkers for long COVID and for the clinically important discrimination between viral CNS infections and autoimmune neuroinflammation.

Funding

iMed, the Helmholtz Association's Cross Programme Initiative on Personalised Medicine (2014-2020)