title: Theranostic Biomarkers for Schizophrenia.
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.
authors.affiliation: Rudjer Boskovic Institute, Division of Molecular Medicine, 10000 Zagreb, Croatia. mnikolac@irb.hr.
authors.forename: Matea Nikolac
authors.initials: MN
authors.lastname: Perkovic
authors.affiliation: Rudjer Boskovic Institute, Division of Molecular Medicine, 10000 Zagreb, Croatia. gnedic@irb.hr.
authors.forename: Gordana Nedic
authors.initials: GN
authors.lastname: Erjavec
authors.affiliation: Rudjer Boskovic Institute, Division of Molecular Medicine, 10000 Zagreb, Croatia. dsvob@irb.hr.
authors.forename: Dubravka Svob
authors.initials: DS
authors.lastname: Strac
authors.affiliation: Clinic for Psychiatry Vrapce, 10090 Zagreb, Croatia. suzana.uzun@gmail.com.
authors.forename: Suzana
authors.initials: S
authors.lastname: Uzun
authors.affiliation: Clinic for Psychiatry Vrapce, 10090 Zagreb, Croatia. okozumplik@hotmail.com.
authors.forename: Oliver
authors.initials: O
authors.lastname: Kozumplik
authors.affiliation: Rudjer Boskovic Institute, Division of Molecular Medicine, 10000 Zagreb, Croatia. npivac@irb.hr.
authors.forename: Nela
authors.initials: N
authors.lastname: Pivac
mesh_terms: D015415:Biomarkers / Q000378:metabolism*; D001826:Body Fluids / Q000378:metabolism; D006801:Humans; D009414:Nerve Growth Factors / Q000378:metabolism; D018377:Neurotransmitter Agents / Q000378:metabolism; D012559:Schizophrenia / Q000175:diagnosis* / Q000188:drug therapy / Q000378:metabolism; D000068936:Theranostic Nanomedicine / Q000379:methods
chemical_list: D015415:Biomarkers; D009414:Nerve Growth Factors; D018377:Neurotransmitter Agents
keywords: biomarkers; diagnostic; inflammatory; metabolic; neurotrophic and neurotransmitter biomarkers; prognostic and theranostic biomarkers; schizophrenia; stress-related