Decreased cerebrospinal fluid cyclic adenosine 3',5'-monophosphate in bacterial meningitis

Publisher Website
Google Scholar
Abstract
The concentration of cyclic AMP (cAMP) in 16 samples from 8 patients with bacterial meningitis due to several different organisms was determined. An age- and sex-matched control group of 12 patients with a variety of acute, noninfectious systemic and neurological diseases was also examined. To quantitate the amount of cAMP, a new improved radioimmunoassay was used with the ability to measure 2.5 .times. 10-15 mol of cAMP. The mean concentration of cAMP in the CSF from patients with meningitis was 0.05 nM and from patients in the control group it was 1.18 nM. The difference between these 2 values is statistically significant. The decreased cAMP concentration in the CSF from patients with bacterial meningitis did not seem to be secondary to metabolism by bacteria or leukocytes, increased enzymatic degradation within the CSF or an artifact introduced by the collection and storage procedure. Since the concentration of cAMP in the CSF is normally found to be within narrow limits and probably reflects intracellular cAMP levels, the results described in this study suggest that interference with cAMP metabolism in CNS tissue occurs in bacterial meningitis. This finding seems to be independent of the causative organism and might explain the pathogenesis of selected, neurological manifestations of this disease.

This publication has 14 references indexed in Scilit: