A pilot study indicating the dysregulation of the complement and coagulation cascades in treated schizophrenia and bipolar disorder patients

Abstract

A better understanding of the proteome profile after bipolar disorder (BD) and schizophrenia (SCZ) treatment, besides monitoring disease progression, may assist on the development of novel therapeutic strategies with the ability to reduce or control possible side effects. In this pilot study, proteomics analysis employing nano liquid chromatography coupled to mass spectrometry (nLC-MS) and bioinformatic tools were applied to identify differentially abundant proteins in serum of treated BD and SCZ patients. In total, 10 BD patients, 10 SCZ patients, and 14 healthy controls (HC) were included in this study. 24 serum proteins were significantly altered (p < 0.05) in BD and SCZ treated patients and, considering log2FC > 0.58, 8 proteins presented lower abundance in the BD group, while 7 proteins presented higher abundance and 2 lower abundance in SCZ group when compared against HC. Bioinformatics analysis based on these 24 proteins indicated two main altered pathways previously described in the literature; furthermore, it revealed that opposite abundances of the complement and coagulation cascades were the most significant biological processes involved in these pathologies. Moreover, we describe disease-related proteins and pathways associations suggesting the necessity of clinical follow-up improvement besides treatment, as a precaution or safety measure, along with the disease progression. Further biological validation and investigations are required to define whether there is a correlation between complement and coagulation cascade expression for BD and SCZ and cardiovascular diseases.