Pregnancy Associated Plasma Protein-A and Epilepsy

Authors: ABDURRAHMAN COŞKUN, BURCU ÖZDEMİRLİ, RAMAZAN MEMİŞOĞULLARI

Abstract: In this study, we aimed to investigate the role of pregnancy-associated plasma protein-A (PAPP-A) as insulin-like growth factor binding protein-4 (IGFBP-4) protease in epilepsy patients. We studied 16 epilepsy patients and 10 healthy controls. Serum PAPP-A levels of epilepsy patients (6.8 ± 3.2 mU/L) were higher than of the control group (5.1 ± 1.9 mU/L), but the difference was not statistically significant (P > 0.05). We concluded that PAPP-A may increase the bioavailability of insulin-like growth factors (IGFs) due to decreased neurogenesis and synthesis of IGFs in chronically epilepsy patients.

Keywords: Brain tumor, epilepsy, IGF-I, IGFBP, IGFBP-4, neurogenesis, PAPP-A

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