Topic: S100b

S100B is a calcium-binding protein concentrated in astrocytes in the Central Nervous System. It is regarded to act as a Damage-Associated Molecular Pattern molecule (for review, 1) and, in this respect, it has also been shown to actively participate in neuroinflammatory processes accompanying Experimental Automimmune Encephalomyelitis (EAE), a recognized animal model for Multiple Sclerosis. In fact both inhibition of S100B activity using pentamidine and of S100B astrocytic synthesis using arundic acid ameliorated clinical and pathologic parameters of the disease (2-4). This study further goes

Acute pancreatitis (AP) is an inflammatory gastroenterological disease, during which about 4% of all patients develop disturbance in consciousness. Besides this sypmtom among the severe AP cases 10 % show serious neurological involvement manifesting in pancreatic encephalopathy. Earlier research from our laboratory showed blood-brain barrier (BBB) permeability elevation in a rat non-invasive AP model. Now our goal was to identify potential BBB injury in pancreatitis patients. For this study we used serum from mild, moderate and severe AP patients to identify BBB opening by measuring neuron spe