Brain specific proteins in diagnosis

Cellular damage of the brain in fetal life is one of the major causes of the morbidity and mortality, which is detected by clinical, radiological and biochemical assessment. The advantage of biochemical assays is to be capable of giving information about the brain lesions before the clinical and radiological evidence. To identify brain damage an effective biomarker must be specific, sensitive, highly predictive and reproducible, and its concentrations must be correlated with the extension of the damage and can be detected in several biological fluids (cord blood, cerebrospinal fluid, amnion fluid, and urine). Brain specific proteins are low molecular weight proteins and found at high concentrations in the central nervous system; so they can be detected in biological fluids during and after cellular damage. Therefore, the detection of brain specific proteins in fetomaternal fluids at prenatal and perinatal stage can be important for early diagnosis of brain damage and monitoring of prognosis as a direct indicator.