Journal of Neuroinflammation This Provisional PDF corresponds to the article as it appeared upon acceptance Fully formatted PDF and full text (HTML) versions will be made available soon Low ficolin-3 levels in early follow-up serum samples are associated with the severity and unfavorable outcome of acute ischemic stroke Journal of Neuroinflammation 2011, 8:185 doi:10.1186/1742-2094-8-185 George Fust (fustge@kut.sote.hu) Lea Munthe-Fog (lea.munthe.fog@rh.regionh.dk) Zsolt Illes (zsolt.illes@aok.pte.hu) Gabor Szeplaki (szeplaki.gabor@gmail.com) Tihamer Molnar (tihamermolnar@yahoo.com) Gabriella Pusch (pusch@aok.pte.hu) Kristof Hirschberg (hirschbergkristof@gmail.com) Robert Szegedi (szrobert@kut.sote.hu) Zoltan Szeplaki (szeplaki@kut.sote.hu) Zoltan Prohaszka (prohoz@kut.sote.hu) Mikkel-Ole Skjoedt (moskjoedt@gmail.com) Peter Garred (garred@post5.tele.dk) ISSN Article type 1742-2094 Research Submission date September 2011 Acceptance date 29 December 2011 Publication date 29 December 2011 Article URL http://www.jneuroinflammation.com/content/8/1/185 This peer-reviewed article was published immediately upon acceptance It can be downloaded, printed and distributed freely for any purposes (see copyright notice below) Articles in JNI are listed in PubMed and archived at PubMed Central For information about publishing your research in JNI or any BioMed Central journal, go to http://www.jneuroinflammation.com/authors/instructions/ For information about other BioMed Central publications go to © 2011 Fust et al ; licensee BioMed Central Ltd This is an open access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/2.0), which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original work is properly cited Journal of Neuroinflammation http://www.biomedcentral.com/ © 2011 Fust et al ; licensee BioMed Central Ltd This is an open access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/2.0), which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original work is properly cited Low ficolin-3 levels in early follow-up serum samples are associated with the severity and unfavorable outcome of acute ischemic stroke George Füst1, Lea Munthe-Fog2, Zsolt Illes3, Gábor Széplaki1 , Tihamér Molnar4, Gabriella Pusch3, Kristóf Hirschberg5,7, Robert Szegedi6, Zoltán Széplaki6 , Zoltán Prohászka1, MikkelOle Skjoedt2, Peter Garred2 3rd Department of Internal Medicine, Semmelwies University, Budapest, Hungary, Laboratory of Molecular Medicine, Department of Clinical Immunology-7631, Rigshospitalet, University of Copenhagen, Copenhagen, Denmark,3Division of Clinical and Experimental Neuroimmunology, Department of Neurology, University of Pecs, Pecs, Hungary, 4Institute of Anaesthesia and Intensive Therapy, Faculty of Medicine, University of Pecs, Pecs, Hungary, 5Heart Center, Semmelweis University, Budapest, Hungary, Department of Neurology, Kútvölgyi Clinical Centre, Semmelweis University, Budapest, Hungary, 7Experimental Laboratory of Cardiac Surgery, University of Heidelberg, Germany Address correspondence to Dr George Füst 3rd Dept Internal Medicine Semmelweis University Budapest Kútvölgyi út Phone: 361-212-9351, fax: 361-225-3899 e-mail: fustge@kut.sote.hu Abstract Background A number of data indicate that the lectin pathway of complement activation contributes to the pathophysiology of ischemic stroke The lectin pathway may be triggered by the binding of mannose-binding lectin (MBL), ficolin-2 or ficolin-3 to different ligands Although several papers demonstrated the significance of MBL in ischemic stroke, the role of ficolins has not been examined Methods Sera were obtained within 12 hours after the onset of ischemic stroke (admission samples) and 3-4 days later (follow-up samples) from 65 patients The control group comprised 100 healthy individuals and 135 patients with significant carotid stenosis (patient controls) The concentrations of ficolin-2 and ficolin-3, initiator molecules of the lectin complement pathway, were measured by ELISA methods Concentration of C-reactive protein (CRP) was also determined by a particle-enhanced immunturbidimetric assay Results Concentrations of both ficolin-2 and ficolin-3 were significantly (p