Elevated glutamine/glutamate ratio in cerebrospinal fluid of first episode and drug naive schizophrenic patients.
BACKGROUND
Recent magnetic resonance spectroscopy (MRS) studies report that glutamine is altered in the brains of schizophrenic patients. There were also conflicting findings on glutamate in cerebrospinal fluid (CSF) of schizophrenic patients, and absent for glutamine. This study aims to clarify the question of glutamine and glutamate in CSF of first episode and drug naive schizophrenic patients.


METHODS
Levels of glutamine and glutamate in CSF of 25 first episode and drug-naive male schizophrenic patients and 17 age-matched male healthy controls were measured by a high performance liquid chromatography.


RESULTS
The ratio (126.1 (median), 117.7 +/- 27.4 (mean +/- S.D.)) of glutamine to glutamate in the CSF of patients was significantly (z = -3.29, p = 0.001) higher than that (81.01 (median), 89.1 +/- 22.5 (mean +/- S.D.)) of normal controls although each level of glutamine and glutamate in patients was not different from that of normal controls.


CONCLUSIONS
Our data suggests that a disfunction in glutamate-glutamine cycle in the brain may play a role in the pathophysiology of schizophrenia.
Hashimoto
Kenji
K
Department of Psychiatry, Graduate School of Medicine, Chiba University, Chiba 260-8670, Japan. hashimoto@faculty.chiba-u.jp
Engberg
Göran
G
Shimizu
Eiji
E
Nordin
Conny
C
Lindström
Leif H
LH
Iyo
Masaomi
M
D000293:Adolescent; D000328:Adult; D001923:Brain Chemistry / Q000502:physiology; D002851:Chromatography, High Pressure Liquid; D018698:Glutamic Acid / Q000134:cerebrospinal fluid* / Q000502:physiology; D005973:Glutamine / Q000134:cerebrospinal fluid* / Q000502:physiology; D006801:Humans; D008297:Male; D012016:Reference Values; D012559:Schizophrenia / Q000134:cerebrospinal fluid* / Q000503:physiopathology
D005973:Glutamine; D018698:Glutamic Acid