Abstract
Antipsychotics are the main line of treatment for schizophrenia, a disorder that affects about 1% of the worldwide population. Considering the poor performance of antipsychotics on patients, this work aimed at detecting alterations in the elemental profile resulting from the use of this type of medication using an elemental fingerprinting strategy. We evaluated 56 plasma samples from schizophrenia patients by inductively coupled plasma mass spectrometry (ICP-MS) before (t0) and after 6 weeks (t6) of treatment. The level of response of the patients (good vs. poor responders) and the medications taken were considered. Zinc, aluminum, phosphorus, and iron levels were found to be increased, whereas sodium, potassium, calcium, and magnesium levels decreased after treatment. Aluminum presented a higher level in poor responders at t0 when compared to good responders. At t6, iron showed an increased level when compared to t0 for good responders; however, its level remained constant in poor responders. The results of this exploratory study provide clues for further investigations on the role of metal ions in the treatment of schizophrenia.
Similar content being viewed by others
References
Kahn RS, Sommer IE, Murray RM, Meyer-Lindenberg A, Weinberger DR, Cannon TD, O’Donovan M, Correll CU, Kane JM, van Os J, Insel TR (2015) Schizophrenia. Nat Rev Dis Primers 1:15067
Martins-de-Souza D, Solari FA, Guest PC, Zahedi RP, Steiner J (2015) Biological pathways modulated by antipsychotics in the blood plasma of schizophrenia patients and their association to a clinical response. NPJ Schizophr 1:15050
Keshavan MS, Lawler AN, Nasrallah HA, Tandon R (2017) New drug developments in psychosis: challenges, opportunities and strategies. Prog Neurobiol 152:3–20
Zhang P, Georgiou CA, Brusic V (2017) Elemental metabolomics. Brief Bioinform J 10:131
Chai L, Chen T, Yang J, Zhou K, Yan X, Chen W, Sun L, Li L, Qin S, Wang P, Yang P, Cui D, Burmeister M, He L, Jia W, Wan C (2015) Serum trace element differences between schizophrenia patients and controls in the Han Chinese population. Sci Rep 5:15013
Liu T, Lu QB, Yan L, Guo J, Feng F, Qiu J, Wang J (2015) Comparative study on serum levels of 10 trace elements in schizophrenia. PLoS One 10:e0133622
Sussulini A, Banzato CEM, Arruda MAZ (2011) Exploratory analysis of the serum ionomic profile for bipolar disorder and lithium treatment. Int J Mass Spectrom 307:182–184
Xia J, Wishart DS (2016) Using Metaboanalyst 3.0 for comprehensive metabolomics data analysis. Curr Protoc Bioinf 55:14.10.1–14.10.91
Rahman A, Azad MA, Hossain I, Qusar MM, Bari W, Begum F, Huq SM, Hasnat A (2009) Zinc, manganese, calcium, copper, and cadmium level in scalp hair samples of schizophrenic patients. Biol Trace Elem Res 127:102–108
Jomova K, Vondrakova D, Lawson M, Valko M (2010) Metals, oxidative stress and neurodegenerative disorders. Mol Cell Biochem 345:91–104
Yanik M, Kocyigit A, Tutkun H, Vural H, Herken H (2004) Plasma manganese, selenium, zinc, copper, and iron concentrations in patients with schizophrenia. Biol Trace Elem Res 98:109–117
Acknowledgements
The authors thank FAPESP, CNPq and CAPES for the financial support. PIBIC and CAPES are acknowledged for HME and GSP scholarships, respectively. Anke Dudeck, Daniela Fenker, Sieglinde Funke, Bianca Jerzykiewicz, Gabriela Meyer-Lotz, Katrin Paelchen, and Jeanette Schadow participated in the sample characterization and collection at the University of Magdeburg. Also, we thank Brad J. Smith for proofreading the article.
Author information
Authors and Affiliations
Corresponding authors
Ethics declarations
Conflict of interest
The authors declare to have no conflicts of interest.
Funding
FAPESP (Grant Numbers 2015/13229-1, 2013/08711-3, 2014/10068-4, 2014/50867-3, 2016/07384-7) and CNPq (88881.062204/2014-01, 460289/2014-4, 465389/2014-7).
Additional information
Johann Steiner and Daniel Martins-de-Souza contributed equally to this work.
Electronic supplementary material
Below is the link to the electronic supplementary material.
Rights and permissions
About this article
Cite this article
Sussulini, A., Erbolato, H.M., Pessôa, G.d. et al. Elemental fingerprinting of schizophrenia patient blood plasma before and after treatment with antipsychotics. Eur Arch Psychiatry Clin Neurosci 268, 565–570 (2018). https://doi.org/10.1007/s00406-017-0836-4
Received:
Accepted:
Published:
Issue Date:
DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s00406-017-0836-4