New research says there's a schizophrenia marker in the hair

A new study in Japan has found that a certain subtype of schizophrenia is related to the excessive production of hydrogen sulfide in the brain A key protease responsible for catalyzing the production of hydrogen sulfide is the "culprit" Studies have shown that the level of this enzyme in human hair follicles can be used as a biomarker to detect schizophrenia Researchers from Japan Institute of physics and chemistry and other institutions published relevant papers in the online edition of the journal Molecular Medicine of the European Molecular Biology Organization They hope that this new discovery can help to understand the causes of schizophrenia and provide ideas for the development of new drugs for the treatment of schizophrenia In a study of mice, researchers found that a protease called MPST, which catalyzes the production of hydrogen sulfide, was overexpressed in the brains of mice with schizophrenia The results showed that the level of hydrogen sulfide in schizophrenic mice was much higher than that in normal mice Further experiments showed that knockout of the gene encoding MPST significantly improved the symptoms of schizophrenia in mice The team analyzed human samples and found that the expression level of MPST gene in the brain of schizophrenics after death was significantly higher than that of normal people, and the level of this protease in the brain was related to the severity of clinical symptoms before death The researchers also examined hair follicle samples from more than 150 schizophrenics and found that the expression level of MPST related messenger RNA (mRNA) was much higher than that of normal people, indicating that the level of MPST in hair follicles can be used as a biomarker of schizophrenia (BIOON Com)