Brief CommunicationDistinguishing the cerebrospinal fluid cytokine profile in neuropsychiatric systemic lupus erythematosus from other autoimmune neurological diseases

•NPSLE is a serious organ disorder with a variety of symptoms.•NPSLE remains a diagnostic and therapeutic challenge.•We were able to identify five “minimum markers” that can be used to distinguish NPSLE from MS and NMO.•We found that many markers were operating together in NPSLE compared to MS and NMO.•The determination of various types of CSF markers may contribute to the diagnosis of NPSLE.

Neuropsychiatric systemic lupus erythematosus (NPSLE) is a serious complication in SLE. Although the mechanism of NPSLE remains unclear, cytokines and chemokines are considered to be involved in their pathogenesis. Here we used Bio-Plex Pro assays to examine 27 types of cytokines and chemokines in the cerebrospinal fluid (CSF) of 32 NPSLE patients. We used the CSF of 20 patients with multiple sclerosis (MS) and 22 patients with neuromyelitis optica (NMO) as a disease control group. Fourteen of 27 cytokines/chemokines were significantly higher in the NPSLE patients compared to the MS/NMO patients. We could identify six “minimum predictive markers” by using a weighted-voting algorithm that could distinguish NPSLE from MS and NMO: interleukin (IL)-17, IL-2, interferon (IFN)-γ, IL-5, basic fibroblast growth factor (FGF)-basic and IL-15. The determination of various types of CSF cytokine profiles may contribute to the diagnosis of NPSLE and may help elucidate the mechanisms underlying this disease.