Characterization of a synaptic antigen of interest in neuropsychiatric illness

Monoclonal antibodies exhibiting relative differences in binding to brain homogenates from diseased versus control brains may be useful probes into the molecular pathology of neuropsychiatric illness. To be of value, the antibodies must be useful in characterization of the antigens putatively involved in the illness. An antibody called EP10 showed some differences in binding to homogenates from a small sample of schizophrenia brains compared with controls. In the present study, the antigen for this antibody was characterized in control brains using quantitative, immunocytochemical, and biochemical techniques. The antigen is a 38,000 dalton synaptic vesicle protein, which is identical to synaptophysin by immunological criteria. However, the EP10 epitope is of interest, as this binding site does not appear to be present in rat or bovine synaptophysin. Brain regional studies using EP10 indicate that the antigen may be present in only a subset of synaptic terminals. Further studies are required to fully characterize the epitope, and to determine the significance of the earlier findings related to schizophrenia.