The MRNA Expression Of PACAP And BDNF In Peripheral Blood Mononuclear Cells In Patients With Headache Disorders

Background Headache is the most prevalent problem which troubles people. Migraine, tension-type headache (TTH) and cluster headache (CH) are more common primary headache disorders and medication overuse headache (MOH)is special and common secondary headache disorder. Now we know there has been no biomarker with easy operation and high accuracy to differentiate headache. Hence, in the present study we evaluated the correlation between PACAP and BDNF gene and headache in the Chinese population through detecting the mRNA expression of PACAP and BDNF in peripheral blood mononuclear cells (PBMCs) in patients with headache disorders and healthy people, in order to provide a new clue for differential diagnosis of headache disorders. Two parts were included in this study:Part 1 The mRNA expression of PACAP genes in PBMCs in patients with headache disordersObjective To explore the mRNA expression of PACAP genes in PBMCs from patients with headache.Methods One hundred and one patients with headache diagnosed according to the clinical diagnosis criteria given in ICHD-3 beta. Disease Classification were selected as migraine group, tension type headache group, cluster headache group, medication overuse headache and thirty five healthy persons served as control group. Mononuclear cells were isolated from peripheral blood samples and RNA was extracted. Real-time polymerase chain reaction (PCR) was performed to determine the mRNA expression of PACAP, which was normalized against glyceraldehydes phosphate dehydrogenase mRNA.Results The expression of PACAP mRNA in PBMCs from patients with migraine was significantly lower than that in the control group (P<0.05), and there was no statistically significant difference between other headache groups and the control group.Conclusion PACAP mRNA expression in PBMCs is significantly correlated with migraine but not correlated with TTH, CH and MOH. It will play a guiding role in differential diagnosis of migraine and other type of headache and may provide theoretical guidance for further functional study.Part 2 The mRNA expression of BDNF genes in PBMCs in patients with headache disordersObjective To explore the mRNA expression of BDNF genes in PBMCs from patients with headache.Methods One hundred and one patients with headache diagnosed according to the clinical diagnosis criteria given in ICHD-3 beta. Disease Classification were selected as migraine group, tension type headache group, cluster headache group, medication overuse headache and thirty five healthy persons served as control group. Mononuclear cells were isolated from peripheral blood samples and RNA was extracted. Real-time polymerase chain reaction (PCR) was performed to determine the mRNA expression of BDNF, which was normalized against glyceraldehydes phosphate dehydrogenase mRNA.Results There was no statistically significant difference of the expression of BDNF mRNA in PBMCs from patients between the control group and other headache groups.Conclusion BDNF mRNA expression in PBMCs is not correlated with Migraine. TTH, CH and MOH.