Proteomic Analysis of Vessels in Migraine Surgery

Although there is increasing evidence of migraine headaches having extracranial origins, the exact mechanisms behind the pathogenesis of surgically treated migraines continue to be poorly investigated and described. Specific alterations in the vasculature at the neurovascular bundles of the temporal and occipital trigger sites have been described. In this study we investigated the proteomic characteristics of superficial temporal and occipital arteries in the auriculotemporal and great occipital trigger points of migraine patients to determine their possible role in migraine etiopathogenesis. Forty biopsies were collected intraoperatively during migraine surgery. Samples were dissociated with Liberase TL enzyme and then were lysed, reduced and alkylated with LYSE buffer, digested, and processed by iST protocol (doi. org/ 10. 1038/ nmeth. 2834). Digested samples were analysed by a nano-UHPLC-MS/MS system using an Ultimate 3000 RSLC coupled to an Orbitrap Fusion Tribrid mass spectrometer. Protein identification was obtained using the MaxQuant software searched against the Uniprot reference human proteome database. We identified 2253 total proteins. 46 proteins were significantly modulated between healthy and pathological artery. From the GO enrichment analysis we found that the up-regulated proteins in the pathological artery were enriched in pathways related to immune functions such as negative regulation of lymphocyte-mediated immunity and leukocyte-mediated immunity, while the up-regulated proteins in the healthy arteries were enriched in pathways such as extracellular structure organization and collagen fibril organization. These data corroborated the role of vascular anomalies in migraine pathogenesis. The reflections of these results in surgical practice have still to be investigated.