Think you have schizophrenia? A simple blood test can answer

From J Post.com (July 18):

Researchers from the Hebrew University of Jerusalem and Jerusalem’s Shaare Zedek Medical Center have discovered that brain cells die in a psychotic attack and a simple blood test could make it possible to predict such an event and treat it.

Groundbreaking biological marker for psychosis

The groundbreaking discovery allowed researchers to identify significant brain damage during a psychotic attack, such as in a schizophrenic episode, when they compared the patients to healthy subjects. This is the first time a biological marker for psychosis has ever been found. The test could lead to early detection, diagnosis, early intervention and appropriate treatment for schizophrenia.

This first brain research of its kind was led by Dr. Asael Lubotzky, a senior pediatrician in Shaare Zedek’s Neuropediatric Unit, as part of a doctoral dissertation supervised by two researchers from Hebrew University’s Faculty of Medicine – Prof. Yuval Dor and Prof. Ruth Shemer – and in collaboration with psychiatrists from the Eitanim Mental Health Center – Dr. Ilana Pelov and Prof. Yoav Cohen.

The article has just been published in the journal eLife under the title “Elevated brain-derived cell-free DNA among patients with first psychotic episode – a proof-of-concept study.”

Helping schizophrenia

Schizophrenia is a common, severe and debilitating psychiatric disorder. Despite extensive research, no biological markers have ever been discovered that can aid in its diagnosis and prediction of its course. This makes early detection and intervention impossible, they wrote.

Psychosis is the first presentation of schizophrenia that usually leads to the diagnosis. Although psychosis typically begins during adolescence and young adulthood, there is a growing amount of data that show underlying biological changes beginning years before symptoms of psychosis. Thus, identifying biomarkers that will allow early diagnosis and therapeutic interventions is of the highest importance.

“Imaging studies suggest brain volume loss around the onset and over the first few years of schizophrenia, and apoptosis [cell death] has been proposed as the underlying mechanism. Cell-free DNA (cfDNA) fragments are released into the bloodstream following cell death. Tissue-specific methylation patterns allow the identification of the tissue origins of cfDNA,” the study’s authors wrote.

“We developed a cocktail of brain-specific DNA methylation markers biochemical process where a DNA base, usually cytosine, is enzymatically methylated at the 5-carbon position. An epigenetic modification associated with gene regulation, DNA methylation is of paramount importance to biological health and disease.”

In the course of life, aging processes, environmental influences and lifestyle factors such as smoking or poor diet induce biochemical changes in the DNA. Frequently, these lead to DNA methylation, a process in which methyl groups are added to particular DNA segments, without changing the DNA sequence. Potential interpretations of these findings include increased brain cell death, disruption of the blood-brain barrier or a defect in clearance of material from dying brain cells. Brain-specific cfDNA methylation markers can potentially assist early detection and monitoring of schizophrenia and thus allow early intervention and adequate therapy. [read more]