| Schizophrenia is one of the most serious mental disorders. It characterized by a range of striking disturbance in mental functioning that include disruption in the experience of reality and disorganized thoughts, behaviors and negative mood states. The current clinical diagnosis of schizophrenia highly relies on subjective test, and thus can never be truly objective. This is one of the reasons why it is hard for the diagnosis and differential diagnosis of schizophrenia. Therefore, it is crucial to establish a reasonably objective criteria set and increasing diagnostic accuracy by developing the scientific techniques in the diagnosis and treatment of schizophrenia.Classified samples of the first episode schizophrenic patient group, first episode depressed patient group and healthy comparison group participated the case-control study. Fasting venous blood sample was obtained from all subjects. Enzyme-linked immunosorbent assay (ELISA) was developed to quantitate human nerve growth factor(NGF), brain-derived neurotrophic factor(BDNF), transforming growth factor-P(TGF-β), interleukin-2(IL-2), calcium binding protein S100β(S100β) and tumor necrosis factor-a(TNF-a). High Performance Liquid Chromatography(HPLC) was adopted to quantitate the serum levels of homocysteine (HCY). Statistical analysis was performed using SPSS 15.0. For the comparison between the groups, one way (ANOVA), Pearson correlation and Receive operating characteristic curve (ROC) analysis were employed to establish the clinical diagnosis method for schizophrenia. The results indicated that the serum concentrations of NGF,1L-2, and TNF-αin schizophrenia group and depression group were lower compared to control group. However, the serum concentrations of BDNF, S100βand HCY both in schizophrenia group and depression group were higher compared to control group, and the differences were considered statistically significant (P<0.05), especially between the schizophrenia group and the control group. The findings on TGF-βserum levels in schizophrenia group, depression group and control group, however statistical significance was not reached. By the analysis of ROC, it was found the combination of NGF, IL-2, TNF-a, S100βand HCY serum concentrations improved the diagnostic accuracy for diagnosis of schizophrenia, compared to any single one. Therefore, based on the current finding, the diagnostic standards of schizophrenia have been preliminarily established:to determine NGF, IL-2, TNF-α, S100βand HCY serum levels, any three positive terms predict schizophrenia. According to our diagnostic criteria, the specificity and sensitivity were 90% and 93.1% respectively.The auditory evoked potential P300 is relevant to memory and cognition. Cognitive dysfunction is one of the three key clinical symptoms in schizophrenia. In order to investigate the relationship between P300 and schizophrenia and the possibility of the application of P300 for diagnosing schizophrenia, current study explored the correlation between NGF serum levels and auditory evoked potential P300. The results indicated that in schizophrenia group, it was correlated between the amplitude of target stimulation at Fz and the PANSS negative scores, and between the PANSS-negative scores and NGF serum levels. The amplitude of target stimulation at Fz was significantly positive correlated with NGF serum concentrations (r=0.673,P<0.001). However, the diagnosis value of P300 on schizophrenia is inferior to serum cytokines.In a further move to select serum proteins related to schizophrenia, the study analyzed the serum proteins in schizophrenia group, depression group and control group by Two-Dimensional Electrophoresis (2-DE).12 different protein points were found between schizophrenia and depression groups. In schizophrenia group, 5 points'protein expression were up-regulated and 7 were down-regulated.17 different protein points were found between schizophrenic and control groups. In schizophrenia group,11 points' protein expression were up-regulated and 6 were down-regulated.15 different protein points between the depression and control groups were found. In the depression group,8 points'protein expression were up-regulated and 7 were down-regulated.15 protein points were found by mass spectrometric detection. Three of them were known proteins, which are transferrin-Fe, Serum albumin and hemoglobin. Back to the certificate of inspection, it is confirmed that transferrin-Fe serum concentrations both in schizophrenic and depressed groups were significantly lower than in healthy subjects (P<0.05). No significantly difference was found in Serum albumin and hemoglobin serum concentrations among the three groups (P>0.05). Our research contributes to the foundation for further research in selecting proteins related to schizophrenia.In the present study, the findings reached to the conclusion that serum cytokines holds the promises to help in diagnosis of schizophrenia. It enables us to establish an effective, objective and scientific technique in diagnosing schizophrenia. It also set out a good groundwork for laboratory diagnosis of schizophrenia... |
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