Title:The Impact of Post-Genomics Approaches in Neurodegenerative Demyelinating Diseases: The Case of Guillain-Barré Syndrome
Volume: 25
Issue: 29
Author(s): Margarita Villar*, Lourdes Mateos-Hernandez and Jose de la Fuente
Affiliation:
- SaBio. Instituto de Investigacion en Recursos Cinegeticos IREC-CSIC-UCLM-JCCM, Ronda de Toledo 12, 13005 Ciudad Real,Spain
Keywords:
Post-genomics approaches, Guillain-Barré syndrome, transcriptomics, proteomics, systems biology,
neurodegenerative.
Abstract: Background: Why an autoimmune disease that is the main cause of the acute neuromuscular
paralysis worldwide does not have a well-characterized cause or an effective treatment yet? The existence
of different clinical variants for the Guillain-Barré syndrome (GBS) coupled with the fact that a
high number of pathogens can cause an infection that sometimes, but not always, precedes the development
of the syndrome, confers a high degree of uncertainty for both prognosis and treatment. In the
post-genomic era, the development of omics technologies for the high-throughput analysis of biological
molecules is allowing the characterization of biological systems in a degree of depth unimaginable before.
In this context, this work summarizes the application of post-genomics technologies to the study
of GBS.
Methods: We performed a structured search of bibliographic databases for peer-reviewed research literature
to outline the state of the art with regard the application of post-genomics technologies to the
study of GBS. The quality of retrieved papers was assessed using standard tools and thirty-four were
included in the review. To date, transcriptomics and proteomics have been the unique post-genomics
approaches applied to GBS study. Most of these studies have been performed on cerebrospinal fluid
samples and only a few studies have been conducted with other samples such as serum, Schwann cells
and human peripheral nerve.
Results and Conclusion: In the post-genomics era, transcriptomics and proteomics have shown the
possibilities that omics technologies can offer for a better understanding of the immunological and
pathological mechanisms involved in GBS and the identification of potential biomarkers, but these results
have only shown the tip of the iceberg and there is still a long way to exploit the full potential that
post-genomics approaches could offer to the study of the GBS. The integration of different omics
datasets through a systems biology approach could allow network-based analyses to describe the complexity
and functionality of the molecular mechanisms involved in the course of disease facilitating the
discovery of novel biomarkers that could be used to improve the diagnosis, predict the disease progression,
improve our understanding of the pathology, and serve as therapeutic targets for GBS.
