Proteomic Profiling to Reveal Novel Prognostic Markers for Neurological Outcome Following Resuscitation

We hypothesize that specific brain-derived tissue leakage proteins can be identified to reveal novel, more reliable prognostic biomarkers for good neurological outcome.

Methods: This translational study (n=100) is a combination of a prospective basic science study intended to reduce the number of potential plasma biomarker candidates by proteomic shotgun analyses in brain tissue autopsy samples and plasma samples from resuscitated patients (n=10) and a prospective clinical validation study in a large study population (n=90) by high-throughput analyses. Samples will be analyzed by proteomic shotgun analyses using the Q-Exactive quadrupole-orbitrap mass spectrometer (MS). MS/MS data will be interpreted by the MaxQuant and Perseus Software. In order to identify brain-derived proteins within plasma, the plasma proteome of 10 resuscitated patients will be compared to the proteomic profile of brain tissue. This will reduce the number of potential plasma biomarker candidates associated with neurologic outcome. The prospective validation in plasma samples will be performed by a targeted proteomics approach using selected reaction monitoring (SRM) on a triple quadrupole ion MS. Neurological outcome will be assessed by the five-point scale (death, persistent vegetative state, severe disability, moderate disability, and good recovery) according to the cerebral performance categories (CPC). A CPC sore of <3 is considered a good neurological outcome. Selection of proteomic markers and signature estimation will be performed by L1 regularized logistic regression, where the tuning parameter will be optimized by cross-validated model performance. The signature's ability to discriminate patients with good and poor outcome will be described by ROC analysis.

Clinical perspective: An accurate predictor of neurological outcome following CPR is of utmost clinical importance. However, previous studies focused on a very limited array of biomarkers. Therefore, a structured proteomic analysis approach might identify the best marker out of all proteins liberated during cellular damage.