Clinical Significance

Neuron-specific enolase (NSE) is one of the enolases involved in the glycolysis pathway and exists in neural and neuroendocrine tissues. The activity of NSE in brain tissue cells was the highest, the activity level of peripheral nerve and neurosecretory tissue was in the middle, and the lowest value was found in non-neural tissue, serum and spinal fluid. It was found to have excessive NSE expression in tumors related to neuroendocrine tissue origin, especially small cell lung cancer (SCLC), resulting in markedly elevated serum NSE.