Peripheral Complement Factor-Based Biomarkers for Patients with First-Episode Schizophrenia

Yin Cao,1– 4 Yayun Xu,5– 7 Qingrong Xia,1– 4 Feng Shan,1– 4 Jun Liang1– 4 1Affiliated Psychological Hospital of Anhui Medical University, Hefei, People’s Republic of China; 2Department of Pharmacy, Hefei Fourth People’s Hospital, Hefei, People’s Republic of China; 3Psychopharmacology Research Laboratory, Anhui Mental Health Center, Hefei, People’s Republic of China; 4Anhui Clinical Research Center for Mental Disorders, Hefei, People’s Republic of China; 5Department of Epidemiology and Biostatistics, School of Public Health, Anhui Medical University, Hefei, People’s Republic of China; 6Inflammation and Immune Mediated Diseases Laboratory of Anhui Province, Anhui Institute of Innovative Drugs, Anhui Medical University, Hefei, People’s Republic of China; 7The Key Laboratory of Anti-Inflammatory and Immune Medicines, Ministry of Education, Hefei, People’s Republic of ChinaCorrespondence: Jun Liang, Department of Pharmacy, Hefei Fourth People’s Hospital, Affiliated Psychological Hospital of Anhui Medical University, Anhui Mental Health Center, 316 Huangshan Road, Hefei, 230000, People’s Republic of China, Email amhcliangj@163.comObjective: Schizophrenia (SCZ) is a severe, protracted neurological disorder that causes disruptive conduct in millions of individuals globally. Discovery of potential biomarkers in clinical settings would lead to the development of efficient diagnostic techniques and an awareness of the disease’s pathogenesis and prognosis. The aim of the present study was to discover and identify serum complement factor-based biomarkers in discriminating patients with first-episode SCZ from healthy controls.Methods: Eighty-nine patients with first-episode SCZ and 89 healthy controls were included in this study. Psychiatric symptom severity of patients with SCZ was measured with the Brief Psychiatric Rating Scale-18 Item Version (BPRS) and the Scales for the Assessment of Negative/Positive Symptoms (SANS/SAPS). A total of 5 complement factors including complement component 1 (C1), C2, C3, C4, and 50% hemolytic complement (CH50) were measured using commercially available enzyme-linked immunosorbent assay (ELISA) kits. The levels of serum complement factors in the SCZ and control groups were compared, and the receiver operating characteristic (ROC) curve method was used to assess the diagnostic values of various complement factors for separating SCZ patients from healthy controls. Pearson’s correlation test was used to assess the relationships between serum complement factor concentrations and the psychiatric symptom severity.Results: There was an increase in serum levels of C1, C2, C3, C4, and CH50 among patients with SCZ. Moreover, based on ROC curve analysis, the AUC value of a combined panel of C1, C2, C3, C4, and CH50 was 0.857 when used to discriminate patients with SCZ from healthy controls. Furthermore, serum C2, C3, and CH50 levels were positively correlated to the scores of SANS, SAPS, and BPRS in patients with SCZ, respectively.Conclusion: These results suggested that circulating complement factors including C1, C2, C3, C4, and CH50 may have potential in discovering biomarkers for diagnosing first-episode SCZ.Keywords: complement factors, biomarker, diagnosis, serum, schizophrenia