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Glial fibrillary acidic protein (GFAP)-antibody in children with focal seizures of undetermined cause

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Abstract

Anti-neuronal antibodies that are related with autoimmune encephalitis syndromes may also be found in children with new onset seizures or chronic epilepsy. To unravel the significance of autoimmune astrocytopathy in epilepsy, we investigated serum antibody to glial fibrillary acidic protein (GFAP), another autoantigen described in autoimmune encephalitis with seizures, in 38 children with focal seizures of undetermined cause. GFAP antibody was screened with cell based assay and indirect immunohistochemistry and was found in two boys with normal brain MRI and unrevealing medical history prior to seizures. The 2-year-old boy had chronic treatment-resistant frontal lobe epilepsy. The 2.5-year-old boy had a single episode of focal seizures and remained seizure free thereafter in a follow-up period of 4 years. Nevertheless, he showed severe cognitive and language impairment. These results suggest that autoimmune astrocytopathy may be present in some epilepsy patients. Whether this immune response is a bystander effect generated by seizure-induced astrocytosis or directly involved in epileptogenesis needs to be further studied.

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Funding

This study was funded by the Istanbul University Scientific Research Fund (Grant No. 50370, 2015) and Greek Operational Programme Competitiveness Entrepreneurship and Innovation 2014 2020 program (EPANEK) (Grant No. Τ1ΕΔΚ-05024).

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. Department of Speech and Language Therapy, Faculty of Health Science, Biruni University, İstanbul, Turkey

    Merve Savaş

  2. Tzartos NeuroDiagnostics, Athens, Greece

    John Tzartos, Katerina Karagiorgou, Aliki Papaconstantinou & Socrates Tzartos

  3. 1st Department of Neurology, Medical School, Eginition Hospital, University of Athens, Athens, Greece

    John Tzartos

  4. Department of Neuroscience, Aziz Sancar Institute for Experimental Medical Research, Istanbul University, Istanbul, Turkey

    Cem İsmail Küçükali & Erdem Tüzün

  5. Department of Medical Biology, Cerrahpasa Faculty of Medicine, Istanbul University-Cerrahpaşa, Istanbul, Turkey

    Erdinç Dursun & Duygu Gezen-Ak

  6. Division of Child Neurology, Department of Pediatrics, Faculty of Medicine, Marmara University, Istanbul, Turkey

    Dilşad Türkdoğan & Sezin Başoğlu

  7. Department of Pediatrics, Zeynep Kamil Gynecologic and Pediatric Training and Research Hospital, Istanbul, Turkey

    Nilüfer Hacıhafızoğlu

  8. Department of Pediatrics, Umraniye Training and Research Hospital, Istanbul, Turkey

    Büşra Kutlubay

  9. Hellenic Pasteur Institute, Athens, Greece

    Socrates Tzartos

Authors
  1. Merve Savaş
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  2. John Tzartos
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  3. Cem İsmail Küçükali
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  5. Katerina Karagiorgou
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  6. Duygu Gezen-Ak
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  7. Dilşad Türkdoğan
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  9. Sezin Başoğlu
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  10. Nilüfer Hacıhafızoğlu
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  11. Büşra Kutlubay
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  12. Socrates Tzartos
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  13. Erdem Tüzün
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Corresponding author

Correspondence to Erdem Tüzün.

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All procedures performed in studies involving human participants were in accordance with the ethical standards of the institutional and/or national research committee and with the 1964 Helsinki Declaration and its later amendments or comparable ethical standards. This article does not contain any studies with animals performed by any of the authors.

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Informed consent was obtained from all individual participants included in the study.

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Savaş, M., Tzartos, J., Küçükali, C.İ. et al. Glial fibrillary acidic protein (GFAP)-antibody in children with focal seizures of undetermined cause. Acta Neurol Belg 121, 1275–1280 (2021). https://doi.org/10.1007/s13760-020-01361-y

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  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s13760-020-01361-y

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