L-Arginine metabolism before and after 10 weeks of antipsychotic treatment in first-episode psychotic patients
Schizophrenia Research, cilt.206, ss.58-66, 2019 (SCI-Expanded, SSCI, Scopus)
- Yayın Türü: Makale / Tam Makale
- Cilt numarası: 206
- Basım Tarihi: 2019
- Doi Numarası: 10.1016/j.schres.2018.12.015
- Dergi Adı: Schizophrenia Research
- Derginin Tarandığı İndeksler: Science Citation Index Expanded (SCI-EXPANDED), Social Sciences Citation Index (SSCI), Scopus
- Sayfa Sayıları: ss.58-66
- Anahtar Kelimeler: Agmatine, L-Omithine, Agmatinase (AGMAT), First episode psychosis, L-Citrulline
- Sağlık Bilimleri Üniversitesi Adresli: Evet
Özet
Agmatine is an endogenous NMDA (N-methyl-D-aspartate) antagonist which is synthesized from L-Arginine and described as a novel neurotransmitter. Agmatine is considered to play an important role for the development of schizophrenia. The aim of the present study is to explore the role of agmatine and L-arginine metabolism in medication-naive first-episode psychosis (FEP). We conducted a case control study in medication-naive patients with FEP (n = 40). The healthy volunteers with no family history of schizophrenia (n = 35) matched for age, gender and education level were selected as a control group. The patients were recruited to the study and followed up for 10 weeks. The plasma L-arginine, L-citrulline, L-ornithine and agmatine levels were measured using modified liquid chromatography/mass spectrometry. The plasma levels of L-arginine, L-citrulline and agmatine (p < 0.0001), but not L-ornithine and agmatinase (p > 0.05), were significantly increased during baseline analysis. After 10 weeks of treatment, plasma L-arginine and L-citrulline levels were still significantly increased (p < 0.05) while L-ornithine and agmatinase levels remained unchanged (p > 0.05). Conversely, plasma agmatine levels were significantly decreased after the treatment (p < 0.0001). Positive and negative predictive values of agmatine used for evaluating the diagnostic accuracy were 95.1% and 97.1%, respectively (p < 000.1). This is the first study of arginine metabolism and agmatine in medication-naive first-episode patients and provides evidence of increased levels of an endogenous NMDA antagonist which decreases following antipsychotic treatment.