Serum Level of Growth-Associated Protein 43 Is Associated with First-Episode Schizophrenia Patients without Antipsychotic Drugs Treatment.

Nerve growth-associated protein 43 (GAP43) is closely related to neural development, axon regeneration, and synaptic reconstruction and is one of the important markers of neuronal damage. Therefore, in our study, enzyme-linked immunosorbent assay (ELISA) was used to analyze the serum level of GAP43 protein in schizophrenia patients (n = 188), healthy controls (n = 200), and bipolar disorder patients (n = 200). The positive and negative syndrome scale (PANSS) was used to evaluate the mental status of schizophrenia patients, and the Scale of Social Function in Psychosis Inpatients (SSPI) was used to evaluate the social function of schizophrenia patients. According to this study, we found the serum GAP43 level was significantly higher in schizophrenia patients than in bipolar disorder patients, while serum GAP43 levels in bipolar disorder patients were significantly higher than those in control group. When the cut-off value was set as 2.328 ng/mL, the area under the curve (AUC) of serum GAP43 was 0.7795 (95% CI: 0.7431-0.8158) for diagnosis of schizophrenia. The sensitivity and specificity were 92.02% and 65.25%, respectively. However, no correlation between serum GAP43 and the total scores of PANSS scale in schizophrenia patients as well as between serum GAP43 level and SSPI were observed. Therefore, we believe that GAP43 may be a potential diagnostic marker for schizophrenia.

1. Introduction

Schizophrenia is a serious mental illness caused by a combination of genetic and environmental factors [1, 2]. Schizophrenia usually presents severe psychotic symptoms and a wide range of cognitive functional deficits, such as learning, memory, executive function, and attention disorders [3, 4]. According to the theory of mental development, the core of various symptoms of schizophrenia is abnormal neuronal connectivity throughout the brain and defects in information processing between various neural microcircuits, that is, defects in synaptic plasticity [5]. Previous studies have found that the occurrence of schizophrenia is closely associated with factors related to nerve growth and development, such as brain-derived neurotrophic factor (BDNF), nerve growth factor (NGF), fibroblast growth factor (FGF2), and activity-dependent neuroprotective factor (ADNP) [6]. Our previous study suggested that serum BDNF may be an inappropriate biomarker for deficit schizophrenia (DS), but higher serum glial cell line-derived neurotrophic factor (GDNF) levels were associated with better cognitive performance in DS patients [7].

Growth-associated protein 43 (GAP43) is closely related to nerve growth and development processes such as nerve development, axonal regeneration, and synaptic remodeling in the body [8]. It shows high expression during neuronal development and synaptogenesis and continues to be expressed in the presynaptic terminal region and association cortex of the adult brain [9]. Nemes et al. [10] found that GAP43 baseline expression was increased in epileptic rats when compared with nonepileptic rats, suggesting that GAP43 can be used as a new target for the diagnosis, treatment, and prevention of epileptogenesis. Sandelius et al. [11] found that cerebrospinal fluid concentration of GAP43 presented a transient increase after ischemic stroke. Although it has been proven the association of GAP43 with a variety of neurogenic diseases, no relevant studies investigate the relationship between serum GAP43 and the development of first-episode schizophrenia, as well as its clinical symptoms. Although GAP43 is mainly expressed in the nervous system, studies have found that metabolites such as proteins in the brain of patients with schizophrenia enter the cerebrospinal fluid through the damaged blood-brain barrier, and its specific changes dynamically reflect the metabolic state of the brain and the stability of the internal environment [12, 13]. Therefore, in this study, we detect the GAP43 level in the serum of first-episode schizophrenic patients who did not receive antipsychotic drugs. Additionally, the difference of GAP43 expression among patients with schizophrenia and with bipolar disorder and healthy donors is analyzed to explore their correlation with clinical parameters and to study the diagnostic power of GAP43 for schizophrenia.

2. Methods

2.1. Subjects

Patients with schizophrenia who visited Affiliated WuTaiShan Hospital of Medical College of Yangzhou University from April 2017 to March 2018 were selected. Inclusion criteria: (1) patients met the diagnostic criteria of Schizophrenia, based on the Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders, 5th Edition (DSM-V); (2) newly diagnosed patients; (3) patients did not take antipsychotic drugs; (4) patients without a history of electroconvulsive therapy; (5) right-handed patients. Exclusion criteria: (1) patients have central nervous system diseases or other major physical diseases, such as Alzheimer's disease, Parkinson's disease, uncontrolled hypertension, severe cardiovascular, cerebrovascular, pulmonary disease, and thyroid disease; (2) alcohol and drug dependence or abusers; (3) patients with red, green, and blue color blindness or weak color; (4) patients with hearing impairment; (5) patients who cannot complete the questionnaire after training. According to the inclusion and exclusion criteria, 188 patients were finally included in the study and classified in the study group.

Individuals who underwent health examination in the physical examination center during the same period were selected in the healthy control group. Inclusion criteria: (1) individuals' age, gender, and other characteristics matched with the patients in the study group; (2) individuals did not have any mental illness meeting DSM-V diagnostic criteria; (3) individuals without a positive family history of psychosis; (4) right-handed individuals. Exclusion criteria: (1) individuals with central nervous system diseases or other major physical diseases, such as Alzheimer's disease, Parkinson's disease, uncontrolled hypertension, severe cardiovascular, cerebrovascular, pulmonary disease, and thyroid disease; (2) alcohol and drug dependence or abusers; (3) individuals with red, green, and blue color blindness or weak color or hearing impairment. A total of 200 individuals were recruited in the control group.

Patients who visited the hospital during the same period and were diagnosed with bipolar disorder and were selected in the affective disorder group. Inclusion criteria: (1) patients diagnosed with bipolar disorder by DSM-V, and all patients were diagnosed according to the International Classification of Diseases-10 (ICD-10); (2) other criteria were the same as the study group. Exclusion criteria were the same as the study group. A total of 200 patients were included in the affective disorder group.

2.2. Study Methods

2.2.1. Data Collection

Baseline data such as gender and age at enrollment were collected for the subjects in the three groups. The average age of healthy controls was (25.04 ± 3.11) years, and 97 cases were male. The mean age of patients in the bipolar disorder group was (24.73 ± 3.18) years, and 96 cases were male. The mean age of the patients in the Schizophrenia group was (24.94 ± 3.14) years, and 90 cases were male. The Positive and Negative Symptom Scale (PANSS) was used to assess the mental status of patients in the study group (higher score means severer the psychiatric symptoms); the Scale of Social Function in Psychosis Inpatients (SSPI) was used to assess the social function of patients in the study group (higher score means better the patient's social functioning).

2.2.2. Sample Collection and Detection of the Serum Level of GAP43

A total of 3 mL of venous blood was collected in a clotting tube from the subjects in each group. The serum was separated by a fasting centrifugation at 3000 r/min for 15 min and then stored at −80°C till use. Serum GAP43 was detected by enzyme-linked immunosorbent assay (ELISA) kit (Promega, USA). The experimental procedures were performed according to the instructions, which were briefly described as follows: samples, standards, and HRP-labeled detection antibody were added to the wells precoated with the GAP43 capture antibody, incubated at room temperature, and washed thoroughly. After color development with the substrate TMB, the absorbance (OD value) was measured with a microplate reader at a wavelength of 450 nm, and the concentration of each sample was calculated based on the obtained standard curve. These replicate each sample.

2.2.3. Statistical Analysis

Data collection was performed using Excel version 2019, and data analysis was conducted using SPSS (version 22.0; SPSS Inc., Chicago, IL, USA) software and Graphpad prism (San Diego, CA, USA). Normally, continuous variables were expressed as mean ± standard deviation (mean ± SD), and the t-test was used for pairwise comparisons between independent samples; nonnormal continuous variables were expressed as median (P25, P75), and the Mann–Whitney U test was used for pairwise comparisons between independent samples. Categorical variable was expressed as n (%), and pairwise comparisons between independent samples were performed using the χ2 test. The diagnostic efficacy of GAP43 for schizophrenia was evaluated using the area under the curve (AUC) of receiver operating characteristic (ROC) curve. Correlation analysis was performed using the Kendall correlation and Spearman correlation analysis. All assays were two-tailed. Differences were considered statistically significant when p < 0.05.

3. Results

3.1. Demographic Data

The demographic data of healthy controls, bipolar disorder, and schizophrenia patients are shown in Table 1. There are no statistically significant differences between healthy controls, bipolar disorder, and schizophrenia patients in age, gender, fasting state, and time of day (p > 0.05).

Table 1

Comparison of demographic data between healthy controls, bipolar disorder, and schizophrenia patients.

	Healthy controls (n = 200)	Bipolar disorder (n = 200)	Schizophrenia (n = 188)	p
Age (year)a	25.04 ± 3.11	24.73 ± 3.18	24.94 ± 3.14	0.603
Gender [n(%)]				0.991
Male	97(48.50%)	96(48.00%)	90(47.87%)
Female	103(51.50%)	104(52.00%)	98(52.13%)
Fasting state [n(%)]	200(100%)	200(100%)	188(100%)	/
Time of day [n(%)]				0.097
7 : 00–8 : 00	49(24.50%)	37(18.50%)	36(19.15%)
8 : 00–9 : 00	82(41.00%)	110(55.00%)	107(56.91%)
9 : 00–10 : 00	43(21.50%)	41(20.50%)	32(17.20%)
10 : 00–11 : 00	20(10.00%)	11(5.50%)	10(5.32%)
11 : 00–12 : 00	2(1.00%)	1(0.50%)	2(1.06%)

a, data were presented in median (P25, P75).

3.2. Comparison of Serum Level of GAP43 among Three Groups

The serum level of GAP43 in the healthy control, bipolar disorder, and schizophrenia patients are shown in Figure 1. According to the results of statistical analysis, the serum GAP43 level of bipolar disorder patients was significantly higher than that of the healthy control group (p = 0.008), and the serum GAP43 level of schizophrenia patients was significantly higher than that of bipolar disorder patients (p = 0.009).

Figure 1

Comparison of the serum GAP43 level between the healthy control, bipolar disorder, and schizophrenia patients.

3.3. Diagnostic Efficacy of Serum GAP43 in Schizophrenia

The ROC was used to analyze the diagnostic efficacy of serum GAP43 in schizophrenia, and the result is shown in Figure 2. The analysis result showed that the AUC was 0.7795 (95%CI: 0.7431–0.8158), the cut-off value was 2.328 ng/mL, the likelihood ratio value was 2.648, the sensitivity was 92.02%, and the specificity was 65.25%.

Figure 2

ROC curve of serum GAP43 for the diagnosis of schizophrenia.

3.4. Correlation between Serum GAP43 Level and Mental Status in Schizophrenia Patients

Kendall correlation and spearman correlation analysis revealed that no correlations between the serum level of GAP43 and positive symptom score, negative symptom score, general mental status score, and PANSS total score in patients with schizophrenia (all p > 0.05, Table 2).

Table 2

Correlation between the serum GAP43 level and the PANSS score in schizophrenia patients.

Items	Kendall tau-b		Spearman
	Correlation coefficient	p	Correlation coefficient	p
Positive symptom score	0.089	0.083	0.121	0.098
Negative symptom score	0.080	0.119	0.116	0.113
General mental status score	−0.087	0.087	−0.124	0.090
PANSS total score	0.004	0.929	0.010	0.894

3.5. Correlation between the Serum GAP43 Level and Social Function in Schizophrenia Patients

Kendall correlation and spearman correlation analysis revealed neither correlations between serum GAP43 levels and SSPI total score nor various scores in schizophrenia patients (p > 0.05, Table 3).

Table 3

Correlation between serum GAP43 level and SSPI score in schizophrenia patients.

Items	Kendall tau-b		Spearman
	Correlation coefficient	p	Correlation coefficient	p
SSP factor I	0.046	0.373	0.069	0.344
SSPI factor II	−0.099	0.064	−0.135	0.063
SSPI factor III	−0.088	0.104	−0.118	0.106
SSPI total score	−0.016	0.751	−0.021	0.777

4. Discussion

In this study, we investigated the differences in serum GAP43 level between schizophrenia patients, healthy controls, and bipolar disorder patients. The results showed that the serum GAP43 level was significantly higher in schizophrenia patients than other two groups. GAP43 plays an important role in long-term and short-term synaptic plasticities, such as neurotransmitter release, endocytosis and synaptic vesicle recycling, long-term potentiation, and spatial memory formation and learning. It has been shown that GAP43 expression is associated with schizophrenia in cadaveric brains [14]. In the adult brain, GAP43 remains enriched primarily in association cortices and in the hippocampus, and it is suggested GAP43 marks circuits involved in the acquisition, processing, and/or storage of new information [15]. A controlled study of 17 schizophrenia patients showed that the GAP43 level was increased in the hippocampus; this may be due to the development of reactive synapses caused by developmental disorders or injury, indicating an abnormal hippocampal function in schizophrenia patients [16]. A study using real-time quantitative PCR to measure activity-dependent gene levels in cerebellar cortical glutamatergic neurons showed that GAP43 mRNA levels were significantly increased in schizophrenia patients, proposing that glutamatergic neurons may be hyperactive in the cerebellar cortex of schizophrenia patients, resulting in short-term plasticity abnormalities [17]. Through the study of cadaveric brains, GAP43 expression was found to be associated with schizophrenia. Some researchers measured the expression level of GAP43 mRNA in the brain tissue of 37 schizophrenia patients and 37 control groups after death, and the results showed that the expression level of GAP43 mRNA in the dorsolateral prefrontal cortex of schizophrenia patients was reduced [18]. Another study showed that schizophrenia was associated with a disordered organization of synaptic connections in different cortical-related regions of the human brain, and the increased level of GAP43 was a manifestation of this dysfunctional organization [15]. However, studies on both the anterior cingulate cortex and medial temporal lobe did not find significant alterations in the expression of GAP43 [19, 20]. In this study, peripheral blood serum was collected from patients to measure GAP43 expression level, and the change degree of serum GAP43 expression level in schizophrenia patients was elucidated. Compared with the detection of protein or mRNA levels in tissues mentioned in the above reports, the serum sample detection is easy to obtain and can achieve rapid noninvasive detection. Importantly, the expression levels of GAP43 in the serum of schizophrenia patients and bipolar disorder are also significantly different, indicating that GAP43 has clinical application value as a diagnostic marker for schizophrenia.

The correlation study showed that there was no correlation between the content of GAP43 protein in the serum of patients with schizophrenia and the PANSS total score, nor positive symptom score, nor negative symptom score, and nor general pathological symptom score, indicating that although the serum GAP43 protein was increased in schizophrenia patients at the onset, its increase degree was not correlated with the severity of positive symptoms, negative symptoms, and general pathological symptoms of schizophrenia. It is speculated that GAP43 may not be a responsible factor for psychotic symptoms in the acute phase of schizophrenia. Moreover, no correlation between the content of GAP43 protein in serum and the SSPI scores was observed, indicating that the content of GAP43 protein in serum of patients was not correlated with the severity of cognitive impairment such as patient abstract generalization, cognitive transfer, attention, working memory, information extraction, classification maintenance, classification conversion, stimulation recognition and processing, sensory input, and motor output.

Besides these, the study on the diagnostic efficacy of GAP43 for schizophrenia showed when the serum level of GAP43 ≥ 2.328 ng/mL was considered as the abnormal value, the diagnostic sensitivity was 92.02%, and the specificity was 65.25%. Due to high sensitivity but specificity, patients with schizophrenia can be effectively distinguished from nonschizophrenia donors by detecting the serum level of GAP43, but serum GAP43 was not a “mirror” for GAP43 in CNS. In recent years, extensive studies have been conducted on the expression levels of serum-related factors in schizophrenia. Li C et al. [21] found that ErbB4, BDNF, and TET1 were independent predictors of schizophrenia, and the combination has a high diagnostic accuracy for schizophrenia. He et al. [22] investigated the potential of serum miRNAs as diagnostic markers for schizophrenia, and the results showed that the combination of two miRNAs, miR-432-5p and miR-449a, could be potentially used as a biomarker for the diagnosis of schizophrenia. The findings may help psychiatrists to overcome the current dilemma facing the diagnosis of schizophrenia. Based on our and previous studies, we believe that GAP43, as an important nerve growth-associated factor, has the advantages of simplicity, convenience, and high diagnostic accuracy compared with the method of combined diagnosis of multiple proteins or combined diagnosis of multiple miRNAs.

This study also has some limitations. First, GAP43 was not correlated with the social function and mental status of patients with schizophrenia, indicating that GAP43 may not be correlated with the severity of schizophrenia, which limited the application of GAP43 in schizophrenia that can only be used as a disease diagnostic marker. Second, GAP43 has a certain diagnostic efficacy for schizophrenia, but we did not compare transversely with the diagnostic ability of other diagnostic markers. Third, whether the serum level of GAP43 is consistent with the level changes in brain tissue and cerebrospinal fluid needs to be elucidated by further studies.

In summary, GAP43 could be potentially used as a diagnostic marker in schizophrenia patients rather than a marker of disease severity. Since GAP43 has high sensitivity but poor specificity, it should be combined with other diagnostic methods when used in the diagnosis of schizophrenia to further improve specificity.