Concentration of Circulating Cell-Free DNA in the Peripheral Blood Plasma of Patients with Acute Endogenous and Exogenous Etiology Psychoses

Abstract

Introduction: cell-free plasma DNA (cfDNA) is used as a marker refl ecting the level of apoptosis in the human body under stress. Acute psychosis caused by endogenous (schizophrenia) and exogenous (alcohol intoxication) factors in the patient’s body is associated with oxidative stress. Presumably, cfDNA concentration in the blood plasma of patients with acute psychoses of endogenous and exogenous etiology is increased. The purpose of the study: comparative analysis of the cfDNA concentration in the blood plasma of treated and untreated patients with paranoid schizophrenia during the disease exacerbation, patients with alcoholic psychosis and healthy volunteers. Patients and methods: the concentration of cfDNA was determined in the blood plasma samples of 476 people: control group (n = 95); patients with schizophrenia in the acute stage of the disease (n = 334); patients with alcoholic psychosis (n = 47). Results: the concentrations of cfDNA in the plasma of patients with schizophrenia (median 931 ng/ml) is 2.2 times higher than in the control group (median 428 ng/ml) and 1.8 times higher than in the patients with alcoholic psychosis (504 ng/ml). For the patients with schizophrenia with high PANSS, we found the highest values of the cfDNA concentration in the blood plasma during psychosis, which indicates a more pronounced systemic process, which is accompanied by the cell death level increase. Conclusions: the concentration of cfDNA in the blood plasma could be used as a biochemical marker that refl ects the severity of the schizophrenia patient’ state upon admission to the hospital.

Circulating Cell-Free DNA Levels in Psychiatric Diseases: A Systematic Review and Meta-Analysis

“…For the same reason, one report on cf-gDNA was excluded from the DDs group [ 36 ], as the remaining studies analyzed cf-mtDNA. Ultimately, the following numbers of reports were included in the meta-analysis: schizophrenia, 8 [ 24 , 36 , 37 , 38 , 39 , 40 , 41 , 42 ]; BD, 4 [ 25 , 35 , 43 , 44 ]; DDs, 5 [ 35 , 45 , 46 , 47 , 48 ]. The total number of individual studies included in the meta-analysis was sixteen because some reports considered several diseases simultaneously.…”

“…Therefore, we divided all reports depending on the type of analyzed cfDNA. As a result, the total cfDNA was investigated in 6 studies [ 37 , 38 , 39 , 40 , 41 , 42 ] and cf-gDNA in three reports in the case of schizophrenia [ 24 , 36 , 42 ]. There were insufficient data for a meta-analysis of cf-mtDNA in schizophrenia (only two studies) [ 34 , 35 ].…”

“…The column method for cfDNA isolation was used in all reports for BD and DDs. In the case of schizophrenia, three of the eight studies used the column method [ 24 , 36 , 38 ], four used organic solvents [ 37 , 39 , 40 , 41 ], and one used magnetic particles [ 42 ] for DNA extraction. The fluorescent detection method was primarily used to analyze the total cfDNA in schizophrenia (only one report used fluorescence correlation spectroscopy) [ 38 ].…”

“…The cfDNA concentration was presented in various units of measurement. Eight studies reported cfDNA concentrations as ng/mL (or pg/mL) [ 24 , 36 , 37 , 39 , 40 , 41 , 42 , 48 ], five as copies/µL [ 35 , 43 , 44 , 46 , 47 ], two as GE/mL (or U/mL) [ 25 , 45 ], and one as nM [ 38 ]. All selected studies were published between 2015 and 2022.…”

“…The results obtained in this meta-analysis for DDs and BD should be tested in further studies, since the conclusions are based on a small number of reports and a relatively small sample. Some studies were performed by the same research group (in particular, two reports by a group from China [ 24 , 36 ], four reports by a group from Russia [ 37 , 39 , 40 , 41 ], two reports by a group from Sweden [ 46 , 47 ], and two reports by a group from Japan [ 35 , 44 ]), so these studies may have had overlapping samples and a risk of publication bias. Additionally, the heterogeneity of the methods used to isolate and determine the concentration of cfDNA in the reports included in the meta-analysis ( Table 1 ) is a limitation.…”