Peripheral biopterin and neopterin in schizophrenia and depression

Increasing evidence points to a causal involvement of inflammation in the pathogenesis of neuropsychiatric disorders, including major depressive disorder (MDD) and schizophrenia (SZ). Neopterin and biopterin may link peripheral immune system activation and central neurotransmitter alterations. However, it is not fully established whether these alterations are transdiagnostic or disorder-specific and whether they are associated with reward-related psychopathologies. We investigated group differences in neopterin and biopterin in the plasma of healthy comparison (HC) (n=19), SZ (n=45) and MDD (n=43) participants. We then correlated plasma proteins with CRP as a measure for inflammation. Lastly, plasma proteins were correlated with the reward-related psychopathological domain apathy. We found a trend-level difference in biopterin levels and no significant difference in neopterin levels between groups. Within both patient groups, but not HC, we show a significant positive correlation of CRP with neopterin but not with biopterin. Further, we observed no significant correlations of plasma proteins with reward-related psychopathology in HC, MDD or SZ. While our study shows trend-level alterations of biopterin with relevance for future research, it does not support the hypothesis that peripheral neopterin or biopterin are associated with reward-related psychopathology.