Effects of antipsychotics on microrna expression of peripheral blood in schizophrenia patients / 解放军医学杂志

ABSTRACT

Objective To observe the changes in microRNA (miRNA) expression levels in peripheral blood of schizophrenia patients before and after treatment with antipsychotics. Methods Sixty-one consecutive patients with schizophrenia (case group) and 62 normal controls (control group) hospitalized to the 102nd Hospital of PLA from July 2012 to May 2013 were involved in this study. The relative expression levels of 9 miRNAs (miR-181b, miR-195, miR-132, miR-212, miR-30e, miR-346, miR-34a, miR-432, miR-7) in the peripheral blood plasma of patients in two groups were determined by real-time fluorescence quantitative PCR. Twenty-five schizophrenia patients with total score of Positive and Negative Syndrome Scale (PANSS) >70 were selected to determine the miRNA expression levels before and 3 and 6 weeks after antipsychotics (including olanzapine, quetiapine, ziprasidone and risperidone) treatment, and the clinical symptoms and treatment effect in different stages of therapy were assessed by PANSS, Global Assessment Scale (GAS), and Clinical Global Impression scale (CGI). Results The expression levels of miR-181b, miR-30e, miR-346, miR-34a and miR-7 in case group were significantly higher than those in control group (P70, the expression level of miR-132 lowered 3 weeks after treatment (P0.05). The expression of miR-132, miR-195, miR-30e and miR-432 were significantly correlated with the PANSS total score and GAS score along with the treatment course (P<0.05). Conclusion The miR-181b, miR-132, miR-30e and miR-432 maybe used as biological markers for the prediction of the prognosis of patients with schizophrenia.