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Review
. 2017 Mar 30;18(4):733.
doi: 10.3390/ijms18040733.

Theranostic Biomarkers for Schizophrenia

Matea Nikolac Perkovic  1 , Gordana Nedic Erjavec  2 , Dubravka Svob Strac  3 , Suzana Uzun  4 , Oliver Kozumplik  5 , Nela Pivac  6
Affiliations
Review

Theranostic Biomarkers for Schizophrenia

Matea Nikolac Perkovic et al. Int J Mol Sci. .

Abstract

Schizophrenia is a highly heritable, chronic, severe, disabling neurodevelopmental brain disorder with a heterogeneous genetic and neurobiological background, which is still poorly understood. To allow better diagnostic procedures and therapeutic strategies in schizophrenia patients, use of easy accessible biomarkers is suggested. The most frequently used biomarkers in schizophrenia are those associated with the neuroimmune and neuroendocrine system, metabolism, different neurotransmitter systems and neurotrophic factors. However, there are still no validated and reliable biomarkers in clinical use for schizophrenia. This review will address potential biomarkers in schizophrenia. It will discuss biomarkers in schizophrenia and propose the use of specific blood-based panels that will include a set of markers associated with immune processes, metabolic disorders, and neuroendocrine/neurotrophin/neurotransmitter alterations. The combination of different markers, or complex multi-marker panels, might help in the discrimination of patients with different underlying pathologies and in the better classification of the more homogenous groups. Therefore, the development of the diagnostic, prognostic and theranostic biomarkers is an urgent and an unmet need in psychiatry, with the aim of improving diagnosis, therapy monitoring, prediction of treatment outcome and focus on the personal medicine approach in order to improve the quality of life in patients with schizophrenia and decrease health costs worldwide.

Keywords: biomarkers; diagnostic; inflammatory; metabolic; neurotrophic and neurotransmitter biomarkers; prognostic and theranostic biomarkers; schizophrenia; stress-related.

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Conflict of interest statement

The authors declare no conflict of interest.

Figures

Figure 1
Figure 1
Biomarkers that can be measured or determined from the post-mortem brain or using in vivo neuroimaging studies, as well as from peripheral cells and easily available body fluids such as plasma/serum, urine or cerebrospinal fluid (CSF).
Figure 2
Figure 2
Diagnostic, prognostic and theranostic biomarkers for schizophrenia might be divided into inflammatory, stress-related, metabolic, neurotrophic and neurotransmitter biomarkers.
See this image and copyright information in PMC

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