Characterizing acyl-carnitine biosignatures for schizophrenia: a longitudinal pre- and post-treatment study

• Published in: Translational psychiatry Vol. 9; no. 1; p. 19
• Main Authors: Cao, Bing, Wang, Dongfang, Pan, Zihang, Brietzke, Elisa, McIntyre, Roger S., Musial, Natalie, Mansur, Rodrigo B., Subramanieapillai, Mehala, Zeng, Jing, Huang, Ninghua, Wang, Jingyu
• Format: Journal Article
• Language: English
• Published: London Nature Publishing Group UK 17.01.2019; Nature Publishing Group
• Subjects: 101/58; 692/53/2421; 692/699/476/1799; Adult; Behavioral Sciences; Bioenergetics; Biological Psychology; Biomarkers - blood; Carnitine - analogs & derivatives; Carnitine - blood; Case-Control Studies; China; Chromatography, Liquid; Energy Metabolism; Female; Humans; Logistic Models; Male; Medicine; Medicine & Public Health; Middle Aged; Multivariate Analysis; Neurosciences; Pharmacotherapy; Psychiatry; Schizophrenia; Schizophrenia - blood; Schizophrenia - metabolism; Schizophrenia - therapy; Tandem Mass Spectrometry; China
• ISSN: 2158-3188; 2158-3188
• DOI: 10.1038/s41398-018-0353-x

Subjects with schizophrenia have high risks of metabolic abnormalities and bioenergetic dysfunction. Acyl-carnitines involved in bioenergetic pathways provide potential biomarker targets for identifying early changes and onset characteristics in subjects with schizophrenia. We measured 29 acyl-carnitine levels within well-characterized plasma samples of adults with schizophrenia and healthy controls using liquid chromatography-mass spectrometry (LC-MS). Subjects with schizophrenia were measured at baseline and after 8 weeks of treatment. A total of 225 subjects with schizophrenia and 175 age- and gender-matched healthy controls were enrolled and 156 subjects completed the 8-week follow-up. With respect to plasma acyl-carnitines, the individuals with schizophrenia at baseline showed significantly higher levels of C4-OH (C3-DC) and C16:1, but lower concentrations of C3, C8, C10, C10:1, C10:2, C12, C14:1-OH, C14:2, and C14:2-OH when compared with healthy controls after controlling for age, sex, body mass index (BMI), smoking, and drinking. For the comparison between pretreatment and posttreatment subjects, all detected acyl-carnitines were significantly different between the two groups. Only the concentration of C3 and C4 were increased after selection by variable importance in projection (VIP) value >1.0 and false discovery rate (FDR) q value <0.05. A panel of acyl-carnitines were selected for the ability to differentiate subjects of schizophrenia at baseline from controls, pre- from post-treatment, and posttreatment from controls. Our data implicated acyl-carnitines with abnormalities in cellular bioenergetics of schizophrenia. Therefore, acyl-carnitines can be potential targets for future investigations into their roles in the pathoetiology of schizophrenia.