The audacity of proteomics: a chance to overcome current challenges in schizophrenia research

The evidence on the mechanisms underlying schizophrenia seems to support a series of divergent possibilities that may play a contributory role in the disease pathogenesis. Hypotheses regarding disease mechanisms range from structural and neurodevelopmental abnormalities to neurotransmitter deficits and genetic predisposition. Nevertheless, little progress has been made in the field of schizophrenia with respect to the key pathophysiological processes, and this is a fundamental barrier to identifying or predicting the therapeutic value of novel drug targets. All multi-omics approaches, including proteomics, would be perfectly suited to such a complex disease as a means of tackling the widening chasm between the aforementioned hypotheses. Proteomic studies have been performed in a variety of tissues and biological fluids, from post-mortem CNS tissue to cerebrospinal fluid and blood, and in recently generated mutant animal models with schizophrenia-like phenotypes. In this review, we present an overview of several proteomic studies in the field of schizophrenia research and discuss how proteomics could assist with identifying schizophrenia markers more efficiently, covering both clinical and basic research.