Increased Protein Insolubility in Brains From a Subset of Patients With Schizophrenia.
Publication/Presentation Date
9-1-2019
Abstract
OBJECTIVE: The mechanisms leading to schizophrenia are likely to be diverse. However, there may be common pathophysiological pathways for subtypes of the disease. The authors tested the hypothesis that increased protein insolubility and ubiquitination underlie the pathophysiology for a subtype of schizophrenia.
METHODS: Prefrontal cortex and superior temporal gyrus from postmortem brains of individuals with and without schizophrenia were subjected to cold sarkosyl fractionation, separating proteins into soluble and insoluble fractions. Protein insolubility and ubiquitin levels were quantified for each insoluble fraction, with normalization to total homogenate protein. Mass spectrometry analysis was then performed to identify the protein contents of the insoluble fractions. The potential biological relevance of the detected proteins was assessed using Gene Ontology enrichment analysis and Ingenuity Pathway Analysis.
RESULTS: A subset of the schizophrenia brains showed an increase in protein insolubility and ubiquitination in the insoluble fraction. Mass spectrometry of the insoluble fraction revealed that brains with increased insolubility and ubiquitination exhibited a similar peptide expression by principal component analysis. The proteins that were significantly altered in the insoluble fraction were enriched for pathways relating to axon target recognition as well as nervous system development and function.
CONCLUSIONS: This study suggests a pathological process related to protein insolubility for a subset of patients with schizophrenia. Determining the molecular mechanism of this subtype of schizophrenia could lead to a better understanding of the pathways underlying the clinical phenotype in some patients with major mental illness as well as to improved nosology and identification of novel therapeutic targets.
Volume
176
Issue
9
First Page
730
Last Page
743
ISSN
1535-7228
Published In/Presented At
Nucifora LG, MacDonald ML, Lee BJ, Peters ME, Norris AL, Orsburn BC, Yang K, Gleason K, Margolis RL, Pevsner J, Tamminga CA, Sweet RA, Ross CA, Sawa A, Nucifora FC Jr. Increased Protein Insolubility in Brains From a Subset of Patients With Schizophrenia. Am J Psychiatry. 2019 Sep 1;176(9):730-743. doi: 10.1176/appi.ajp.2019.18070864. Epub 2019 May 6. PMID: 31055969.
Disciplines
Psychiatry
PubMedID
31055969
Department(s)
Department of Psychiatry
Document Type
Article