Identification of inflammatory subgroups of schizophrenia and bipolar disorder patients with HERV-W ENV antigenemia by unsupervised cluster analysis

Bibliographic Details
Title: Identification of inflammatory subgroups of schizophrenia and bipolar disorder patients with HERV-W ENV antigenemia by unsupervised cluster analysis
Authors: Ryad Tamouza, Urs Meyer, Marianne Foiselle, Jean-Romain Richard, Ching-lieng Lu, Wahid Boukouaci, Philippe Le Corvoisier, Caroline Barrau, Alexandre Lucas, Hervé Perron, Marion Leboyer
Source: Translational Psychiatry, Vol 11, Iss 1, Pp 1-8 (2021)
Publisher Information: Nature Publishing Group, 2021.
Publication Year: 2021
Collection: LCC:Neurosciences. Biological psychiatry. Neuropsychiatry
Subject Terms: Neurosciences. Biological psychiatry. Neuropsychiatry, RC321-571
More Details: Abstract Human endogenous retroviruses (HERVs) are remnants of infections that took place several million years ago and represent around 8% of the human genome. Despite evidence implicating increased expression of HERV type W envelope (HERV-W ENV) in schizophrenia and bipolar disorder, it remains unknown whether such expression is associated with distinct clinical or biological characteristics and symptoms. Accordingly, we performed unsupervised two-step clustering of a multivariate data set that included HERV-W ENV protein antigenemia, serum cytokine levels, childhood trauma scores, and clinical data of cohorts of patients with schizophrenia (n = 29), bipolar disorder (n = 43) and healthy controls (n = 32). We found that subsets of patients with schizophrenia (~41%) and bipolar disorder (~28%) show positive antigenemia for HERV-W ENV protein, whereas the large majority (96%) of controls was found to be negative for ENV protein. Unsupervised cluster analysis identified the presence of two main clusters of patients, which were best predicted by the presence or absence of HERV-W ENV protein. HERV-W expression was associated with increased serum levels of inflammatory cytokines and higher childhood maltreatment scores. Furthermore, patients with schizophrenia who were positive for HERV-W ENV protein showed more manic symptoms and higher daily chlorpromazine (CPZ) equivalents, whereas HERV-W ENV positive patients with bipolar disorder were found to have an earlier disease onset than those who were negative for HERV-W ENV protein. Taken together, our study suggest that HERV-W ENV protein antigenemia and cytokines can be used to stratify patients with major mood and psychotic disorders into subgroups with differing inflammatory and clinical profiles.
Document Type: article
File Description: electronic resource
Language: English
ISSN: 2158-3188
Relation: https://doaj.org/toc/2158-3188
DOI: 10.1038/s41398-021-01499-0
Access URL: https://doaj.org/article/9fb415830a574a219426c06892f09f5d
Accession Number: edsdoj.9fb415830a574a219426c06892f09f5d
Database: Directory of Open Access Journals
More Details
ISSN:21583188
DOI:10.1038/s41398-021-01499-0
Published in:Translational Psychiatry
Language:English