Plasma GDF15 level is elevated in psychosis and inversely correlated with severity

Parvin Kumar,Vincent Millischer,Catharina Lavebratt,Urban Ösby,J Carlos Villaescusa,Ida A K Nilsson,Claes-Göran Östenson,Martin Schalling

doi:10.1038/s41598-017-07503-2

Parvin Kumar, Vincent Millischer + Show 6 more

Open Access

https://doi.org/10.1038/s41598-017-07503-2

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Abstract

Accumulating evidence suggests that GDF15 is a biomarker for ageing and morbidity of many somatic disorders such as cancer and inflammatory disorders. Recently, elevated serum GDF15 level was proposed as a marker for mood disorder. However, psychosis severity was not investigated in relation to plasma GDF15 levels. In the present study we measured GDF15 levels in plasma of 120 psychosis patients compared to 120 age and gender matched healthy controls. Within the patient cohort GDF15 levels were evaluated for association with age, gender, lifestyle factors, C-reactive protein levels, psychosis severity and metabolic disorder. Psychosis patients had elevated GDF15 levels compared to controls (medianPsychosis = 744 ng/mL, mediancontrols = 516 ng/mL, p < 0.001). Within the psychosis cohort, GDF15 levels, when corrected for age, metabolic health and lifestyle factors, were negatively correlated with psychosis severity (β = −0.218, p = 0.012). While GDF15 levels were elevated in patients versus healthy controls, the negative correlation between psychosis severity and GDF15 suggests a loss of anti-inflammatory GDF15 mediated functionality in severe psychosis. Study replication in larger cohorts will be necessary to assess the potential of GDF15 as a prognostic biomarker in psychosis.

Highlights

Psychosis is a pathological trait present within psychiatric disorders such as the schizophrenia spectrum of disorders (SSD)[1], delusional disorder[2] and bipolar disorder (BD)[3], which incapacitates sufferers from ascertaining reality[4]
There was no difference in mean Growth Differentiation Factor-15 (GDF15) levels between the psychosis diagnosis groups (p = 0.260), the psychosis patient group was treated as one group in the following analyses
We show for the first time that GDF15 is elevated in plasma of psychosis patients when compared to healthy age and gender matched controls

Summary

Introduction

Psychosis is a pathological trait present within psychiatric disorders such as the schizophrenia spectrum of disorders (SSD)[1], delusional disorder[2] and bipolar disorder (BD)[3], which incapacitates sufferers from ascertaining reality[4]. Elevated inflammatory markers have been reported in the peripheral blood of psychosis patients. C-reactive protein (CRP), secreted by the liver in response to IL-1β, IL-6, and TNF-α has been found to be elevated in psychotic disorders such as schizophrenia (SZ) and BD13, 14. The CRP levels in those groups were reported to be further increased by female gender, higher body mass index (BMI) and elevated blood glucose levels[14,15,16,17,18]. The link between peripheral inflammation and metabolic comorbidity in psychotic disorders is unclear. GDF15 levels have been reported to correlate with CRP levels in certain inflammatory disorders[29, 30]. Given the previously reported relationship between circulating GDF15 levels and metabolic disorder[26,27,28], detected in Frye et al.[35], we considered metabolic comorbidity in the study

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