Plasma?-III tubulin, neurofilament light chain and glial fibrillary acidic protein are associated with neurodegeneration and progression in schizophrenia

Schizophrenia is a progressive disorder characterized by multiple psychotic relapses. After every relapse, patients may not fully recover, and this may lead to a progressive loss of functionality. Pharmacological treatment represents a key factor to minimize the biological, psychological and psychosocial impact of the disorder. The number of relapses and the duration of psychotic episodes induce a potential neuronal damage and subsequently, neurodegenerative processes. Thus, a comparative study was performed, including forty healthy controls and forty-two SZ patients divided into first-episode psychosis (FEP) and chronic SZ (CSZ) subgroups, where the CSZ sub group was subdivided by antipsychotic treatment. In order to measure the potential neuronal damage, plasma levels of beta-III tubulin, neurofilament light chain (Nf-L), and glial fibrillary acidic protein (GFAP) were performed. The results revealed that the levels of these proteins were increased in the SZ group compared to the control group (P < 0.05). Moreover, multiple comparison analysis showed highly significant levels of beta-III tubulin (P = 0.0002), Nf-L (P = 0.0403) and GFAP (P < 0.015) in the subgroup of CSZ clozapine-treated. In conclusion, beta-III tubulin, Nf-L and GFAP proteins may be potential biomarkers of neurodegeneration and progression in SZ

Shotgun proteomics applied to the study of new biomarkers in schizophrenia

Poster.-- 18th National Meeting of the Spanish Society in Neuroscience, September 4th, 2019 to September 6th, 2019, Santiago de CompostelaShotgun proteomics allow the study of the complete proteome without the need to work with isolated proteins. In this techniques, from the enzymatic digestion of the proteins contained in a biological sample can be carried out a massive analysis of the peptides obtained by liquid chromatography coupled to tandem mass spectrometry (LC-MS/MS). Because this technique allows a proteomic analysis from a wide range of biological samples, shotgun proteomics turns out to be highly interesting in the identification of biomarkers of mental disorders like Schizophrenia (SZ), where the affected tissue cannot be analysed in vivo and in which case the study is made from biological fluids such as bloodThis work was supported by a Ramón & Cajal grant (RYC-2014-15246) and by Galicia Innovation Agency-GAIN grant (IN607D-2016/003; IN607D-2017/01).Peer reviewe