Proteomics for Psychiatry
Blood test for schizophrenia
Alexandra Fedoseeva, "Science in Siberia"
Russian scientists have found proteins in the blood serum of people suffering from schizophrenia that can become biological markers for the timely detection of one of the most severe mental disorders. The results of the study are published in the journal BMC Genomics (Smirnova et al., The difference in serum proteomes in schizophrenia and bipolar disorder).
Schizophrenia is a dangerous disease, it often makes itself felt even in adolescence and leads to serious consequences. However, if the right therapy is prescribed in time, with a diagnosis of schizophrenia, you can lead a normal life, maintain social ties, and work.
In order to help a person with such a disease, a doctor needs to make a diagnosis as early as possible. This is not so easy to do, because the symptoms during an attack are nonspecific and similar to the manifestations of other mental illnesses, for example, as severe as bipolar affective disorder (BAR), or manic-depressive psychosis, as it was called before. At the same time, the psychiatrist makes a conclusion solely on the basis of the clinical picture and his experience, there is no "analysis for schizophrenia".
"Scientists all over the world are looking for biological markers of mental disorders. Today, great hopes are pinned on proteomics (the field of biochemistry that studies proteins – ed.). In its arsenal are ultra–sensitive mass spectrometers capable of detecting proteins contained in the blood in very small quantities, but at the same time having a real impact on the development of the disease. Nevertheless, proteins that are specific for schizophrenia and bipolar disorder and could be diagnostic markers have not been found so far," says Lyudmila Pavlovna Smirnova, PhD, senior researcher at the Laboratory of Molecular Genetics and Biochemistry of the Research Institute of Mental Health of the Tomsk National Research Medical Center of the Russian Academy of Sciences. Recently, Tomsk researchers, together with colleagues from Moscow conducting this complex analysis, managed to make a significant step in the search for biomarkers of schizophrenia.
Scientists analyzed the blood serum of patients suffering from schizophrenia, bipolar affective disorder, and healthy people. All patients with mental disorders were hospitalized in the acute stage and have not yet started treatment.
In order to identify proteins that may indicate pathological processes, scientists used mass spectrometry. This is an accurate, but expensive and time-consuming method, so 10 representatives of each group (patients with schizophrenia, BAR and healthy people) were randomly selected for analysis, from whom 30-50 blood samples were taken. From 1,400 to 1,600 proteins were identified in each group, after which bioinformatics and statistics revealed unique proteins for groups of patients with schizophrenia and bipolar disorder.
A total of 27 proteins associated with schizophrenia and 18 with BAR were found. Then it was necessary to find out the amount of these proteins in the blood serum of people with schizophrenia, BAR and healthy people. It was determined using enzyme immunoassay (ELISA) all subjects in each group.
For this purpose, two proteins were selected that are significant for understanding how schizophrenia develops. "We have shown that in patients with schizophrenia, compared with the other groups, ANKD 12 is increased, and in the most severe manifestation of schizophrenia, in addition, cadherin 5 is reduced. Measuring the amount of these proteins by the ELISA method, which is available in most medical laboratories, can already help doctors diagnose schizophrenia and understand the severity of the disease. Perhaps in the future, when other similar proteins are found, a diagnostic panel of laboratory markers of schizophrenia will be created on their basis. We are currently doing this under a grant from the Russian Science Foundation," explains Lyudmila Smirnova.
The results obtained by scientists can tell a lot about the origin and development (pathogenesis) of the disease – today very little is known about this. "All proteins regulate some processes in the body. If the amount of a particular protein increases or decreases, it means that the process in which it is involved goes differently than normal, - says Lyudmila Smirnova. – A set of proteins altered in schizophrenia turned out to be associated primarily with the immune response, cellular communication, cell growth and preservation, protein metabolism and regulation of nucleic acid metabolism. We are just beginning to understand these connections, and there is also a lot of work to be done here."
The work is carried out with the support of the RNF grant No. 18-15-00053 "Search for peripheral markers associated with impaired myelination of the brain and the pathogenesis of the disease in schizophrenia" in the Laboratory of Molecular Genetics and Biochemistry of the Russian Academy of Sciences, Head of the laboratory – Doctor of Medical Sciences S.A. Ivanova.
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