Altered CSF Proteomic Profiling of Paediatric Acute Lymphocytic Leukemia Patients with CNS Infiltration

BACKGROUND: For childhood acute lymphocytic leukemia (ALL), central nervous system leukemia (CNSL) is still the main reason of treatment failure. Changes of cerebrospinal fluid (CSF) proteome are deemed to occur after intrathecal chemotherapy. OBJECTIVE: To find critical CSF biomarkers, which could be utilized to increase diagnostic and prognostic accuracy of CNSL. METHODS: We performed proteomic profiling of CSF before and after the treatment of six sporadic paediatric patients diagnosed as ALL with central nervous system (CNS) involvement. CSF samples were properly processed and analyzed through the use of label-free liquid chromatography-tandem mass spectrometry (LC-MS/MS). RESULTS: Among identified 428 unique proteins in all CSF samples, we quantified 10 altered proteins with diverse biological functions after induction chemotherapy. CONCLUSIONS: The levels of those 10 proteins change during the treatment of CNSL. Some of the proteins are likely to play a vital biological role as biomarkers for the development of ALL. In addition, our results indicated the feasible and reproducible utility of CSF for diagnosis and prognosis of patients with CNSL.