Serum Levels of Mature Brain-Derived Neurotrophic Factor (BDNF) and Its Precursor proBDNF in Healthy Subjects

BACKGROUND: Accumulating evidence points to the brain-derived neurotrophic factor (BDNF) as a biomarker for neuropsychiatric diseases, such as major depression. Mature BDNF is synthesized from its precursor form, proBDNF. Although BDNF levels in human blood can be measured using commercially available human BDNF ELISA kits, due to limited specificity of the BDNF antibody, these kits are unable to distinguish between proBDNF and mature BDNF. In this study, we measured serum levels of proBDNF and mature BDNF in healthy subjects, using human proBDNF and BDNF ELISA kits, respectively. METHODS: Serum levels of proBDNF and mature BDNF in healthy subjects (n = 40) were measured using the sandwich human proBDNF and BDNF ELISA kits.