Bio-X Institutes, Key Laboratory for the Genetics of Developmental and Neuropsychiatric Disorders (Ministry of Education), Shanghai Jiao Tong University, Shanghai, China.
Shanghai Key Laboratory of Psychotic Disorders, Shanghai Mental Health Centre, Shanghai Jiao Tong University School of Medicine, Shanghai, China.
Schizophr Bull. 2018 Jun 6;44(4):896-907. doi: 10.1093/schbul/sbx150.
Schizophrenia (SZ) is a devastating mental disease caused by complex genetic and environmental factors. The pathological process and clinical manifestation of SZ are heterogeneous among patients, which hampers precise diagnosis and treatment of the disease. Since no objective marker for SZ has been established today, to identify a subgroup of the patients with homogeneous biochemical traits will provide a new angle for both researchers and clinicians to understand and manage the disease. In this study, we employed the niacin skin-flushing test in Chinese population and confirmed a niacin-blunted subgroup of SZ patients distinguishable from mood disorders (MD) and normal individuals. This subgroup accounted for 30.67% of the total SZ patients with a specificity of 88.37% in male subjects and 83.75% in female subjects. We support the notion that bluntness in niacin skin test might reflect abnormalities in membrane fatty acid composition, which could be induced by increased PLA2 enzyme activity, in vivo oxidative stress or lipid metabolism imbalance in SZ. Further studies are encouraged to clarify the molecular origins of niacin-bluntness in SZ, which would provide extra clues for etiological research in schizophrenia and for new targeted treatment.
精神分裂症（SZ）是一种由复杂的遗传和环境因素引起的严重精神疾病。SZ 患者的病理过程和临床表现存在异质性，这阻碍了对该疾病的精确诊断和治疗。由于目前尚未确定 SZ 的客观标志物，因此鉴定具有同质生化特征的患者亚组将为研究人员和临床医生提供一个新的角度来理解和管理该疾病。在这项研究中，我们在中国人群中进行了烟酸皮肤潮红试验，并证实了 SZ 患者中有一个烟酸迟钝亚组，可与心境障碍（MD）和正常个体区分开来。该亚组占 SZ 患者总数的 30.67%，男性特异性为 88.37%，女性特异性为 83.75%。我们支持这样的观点，即烟酸皮肤试验的迟钝可能反映了 SZ 中膜脂肪酸组成的异常，这种异常可能是由 PLA2 酶活性增加、体内氧化应激或脂质代谢失衡引起的。鼓励进一步研究阐明 SZ 中烟酸迟钝的分子起源，这将为精神分裂症的病因研究和新的靶向治疗提供额外的线索。
