Health Rounds: Researchers find biomarker that could lead to improved schizophrenia treatments

(This is an excerpt of the Health Rounds newsletter, where we present latest medical studies on Tuesdays and Thursdays.)

March 27 (Reuters) – Researchers have identified a biomarker linked to schizophrenia that could lead to new treatments to tackle symptoms of the debilitating mental disorder not addressed by current medicines.

Currently available antipsychotic drugs can help to control a patient’s hallucinations and delusions but they don’t improve cognitive issues like disorganized thinking and executive dysfunction, which can often prevent individuals from living independently.

“A lot of people with schizophrenia cannot integrate well into society because of these cognitive deficits,” study leader Peter Penzes of Northwestern University Feinberg School of Medicine in Chicago said in a statement.

Analyzing cerebrospinal fluid samples from over 100 people with and without schizophrenia, researchers found those with the disorder had significantly lower levels of a brain protein called CACNA2D1 compared to healthy individuals, resulting in an overstimulation of the brain’s electrical networks that may contribute to cognitive symptoms.

The researchers created a synthetic version of the protein and tested it in a mouse model of genetic schizophrenia. A single injection into the animals’ brains corrected both the abnormal brain circuit activity and the behavioral problems linked to the disorder, without negative side effects such as sedation or reduced movement, they reported in Neuron.

“Our discovery could solve these challenges by establishing the basis of a revolutionary and completely novel treatment strategy through a tandem biomarker-peptide therapeutic approach,” added Penzes.

“The next step… would be to identify the (human) patients who could respond and treat them accordingly,” Penzes said.

ANTIBIOTIC ALTERNATIVE FIGHTS FOOD-BORNE SALMONELLA

Food-contaminating Salmonella bacteria that are resistant to antibiotics can be deactivated instead by a virus that is naturally present in the environment, Chinese researchers say.

The virus, called bacteriophage W5, “functions like a precision-guided missile, capable of eliminating harmful Salmonella on various foods and packaging materials, showing great potential as a novel guardian for food safety,” study leader Huitian Gou from the College of Veterinary Medicine, Gansu Agricultural University in Lanzhou said in a statement.

Salmonella is responsible for 1.35 million infections, 26,500 hospitalizations, and 420 deaths in the United States alone each year, according to U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention estimates.

In lab tests, W5 reduced Salmonella and disrupted biofilms on milk, meat, eggs and on food-contact surfaces under realistic storage conditions, according to a report published in Applied and Environmental Microbiology.

As a natural biological entity, phage W5 offers a “green” solution for decontamination, leaving no harmful chemical residues on food or in the environment, the researchers said.

They say their findings open a new pathway for using bacteriophages to combat antibiotic resistance and enhance food safety.

The researchers envision several possible decontamination options for W5 along the food supply chain, “for instance, as a feed additive in livestock farming, a surface disinfectant in meat processing plants, or even a preservative spray for fresh produce at the consumption end,” Gou said.

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(Reporting by Nancy Lapid; additional reporting by Shawana Alleyne-Morris; Editing by Bill Berkrot)