Fig 1: Re-test of protein candidates using immunoassays. ELISA and Meso Scale Discovery (MSD) analysis of selected protein candidates in plasma samples. a. APOE is up-regulated in plasma samples from ALS-Fast compared to ALS-Slow; a1: positive correlation between APOE plasma levels and PRL in ALS patients; a2: reduced survival for ALS patient with higher APOE levels (above 70,776 pg/ml). a3: APOE levels separate ALS-Fast from ALS-Slow b. ITGB3 is up-regulated in plasma from pre-symptomatic transgenic SOD1G93 animal models (Pre-SOD1129Sv, Pre-SOD1C57) compared to related WT animals, while ITGB3 plasma expression in the respective symptomatic animals are significantly reduces to WT levels. b1 Galectin-3 is significantly downregulated in pre-symptomatic (Pre-SOD1129Sv) and symptomatic in fast progressing SOD1G93A transgenic mice (Sym-SOD1129Sv) compared to 129Sv WT animals (WT129Sv). b2 TGFB1 is significantly upregulated in plasma from Pre-SOD1C57 and from Sym-SOD1C57 compared to WTC57, while it down-regulated in Pre-SOD1129Sv and Sym-SOD1129Sv compared to WT129Sv. In each figure, reported upper p-values relate to Kruskall-Wallis while lower p-values to Dunn’s multiple comparisons tests. c data mining using a RNA-Seq transcriptome and splicing database of glia, neurons, and vascular cells of the cerebral cortex. This interactive splicing browser shows predominant microglia expression of ITGB3 (c), Galectin-3 (c1) and (c2) TGFB1 (http://www.brainrnaseq.org/) in a range of cortical cells [28]. PRL: progression rate to last visit. WT: wild type. OPC: oligodendrocyte precursor cells. FPKM: fragments per kilobase of transcript sequence per million mapped fragments