Proteomic characterization of plasma exosomes in drug-naïve schizophrenia: Insights into psychosis and cognitive...

Schizophrenia (SCZ) is a chronic mental disorder with significant cognitive deficits and social dysfunction. Diagnostic biomarkers remain a challenge in the disease due to its heterogeneity. Exosomes, enriched for neuron-derived contents and accessible obtained from peripheral blood, are promising for biomarker discovery in schizophrenia. However, there are still scarce data characterizing the exosome proteins profile of schizophrenia.

We performed proteomic analysis of plasma exosomes from first-episode, drug-naïve SCZ patients and matched healthy controls (HC). Psychotic symptoms were assessed with the Positive and Negative Syndrome Scale (PANSS), and cognitive function was evaluated using the MATRICS Consensus Cognitive Battery (MCCB). Bioinformatics identified differentially expressed proteins and their correlations with clinical symptoms and cognitive performance.

We identified 121 differentially expressed proteins (Fold Change≥1.5 or ≤0.5, P < 0.05), with 29 significantly associated with SCZ (|log2(Fold Change) | >1, P < 0.001). Enrichment analyses highlighted pathways related to immune modulation, cholinergic synapse function, and metabolic processes. Notably, LRIG1, LIN7C, and RAD23A were linked to severity of psychotic symptoms. In addition, KRT4, RBP5, NOTCH4 and HLA-DPB1 were associated with cognitive function Interestingly, these correlations were not found in healthy controls.

This study identifies novel plasma exosome proteins as potential SCZ biomarkers, highlighting immune dysregulation, neurotransmitter signaling, and metabolic disturbances in tis pathogenesis. These findings support the development of targeted diagnostics and personalized therapies, warranting further validation.