The role of fractalkine in the pathogenesis of Behçet's and Neuro-Behçet's disease

Behcet?s Disease (BD) is a multisystemic disorder characterized by chronic inflammatory with neuro-Behcet?s disease as one of the most serious manifestations. (NBD) The etiology is not well defined; however, studies towards immunopathogenesis focus on cytokine and chemokines. Fractalkine being the only chemokine expressed more in the brain compared to immune system and peripheral tissues has been investigated in many autoimmune diseases, vasculitis and certain neurodegenerative diseases.The objective of this study is to analyze the link of fractalkine which has not been examined in BD and NBD before. Thus, an auxiliary indicator could be found in the diagnosis of a disease without pathognomonic test and especially in the distinctive diagnosis of NBD. To that end, 56 Behcet patients ( NBD in 17 of them and no neurological retention in 39 of them) and 30 healthy individuals have been included in this study. Serum samples of the patients have been collected during active period and inactive period (19 patients) and fractalkine level has been measured using enzyme-linked immunosorbent assay (ELISA) method.Upon comparison of the patients with healthy individuals, no significant difference has been observed in terms of fractalkine level. Furthermore, when the patients are divided into groups based on activity and neurological retention, no statistically significant relation has been observed between serum fractalkine level and neurological retention and serum fractalkine level and disease activity. No significant correlation has been found between serum fractalkine level and age, duration of disease, familial history and the received treatment.