Comparison of the serum levels of proteins involved in microtubule stabilization in patients with alcohol or heroin use disorder.

AIM: In patients with alcohol or heroin use disorder, we aimed to examine the effects of alcohol or heroin use and treatment on the serum levels of microtubule stabilization proteins.

METHOD: A total of 64 patients with 32 alcohol and 32 heroin use disorder, and age-gender matched healthy volunteers were included in this study. Fasting blood samples were taken from patients before and after three weeks of treatment, and from healthy volunteers on the first working day after first interview.

RESULTS

Compared to healthy controls, there were statistically significant decreases for serum levels of microtubule associated protein-2, tau protein, phospho tau protein, glial fibrillary acidic protein, glial cell line derived neurotrophic factor and progranulin, while there was a statistically significant increase for serum levels of Nogo-A in patients with alcohol use disorder (P < 0.001, P < 0.001, P < 0.001, P < 0.001, P < 0.001, P = 0.002 and P < 0.001, respectively). In patients with heroin use disorder compared to healthy controls, there was a statistically significant increase only for serum level of Nogo-A (P < 0.001). Only post-treatment serum progranulin level of patients with alcohol use disorder was statistically significantly higher than pre-treatment levels (P = 0.040).

CONCLUSION

It was considered that these proteins may be a potential biomarker in terms of reflecting molecular level of damage caused by alcohol or heroin use, as well as distinguishing patients with and without alcohol or heroin use disorder. Further studies with long term treatments may be performed to investigate the optimum therapy period, since three weeks of treatment may not be enough to repair this damage.