| 1 | Pharmacopsychiatry 2003 Jan 36: 37-41 |
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| PMID | 12649775 |
| Title | Increased apoptosis of neutrophils in a case of clozapine-induced agranulocytosis - a case report. |
| Abstract | A 45-year-old female suffering from severe chronic schizophrenia of the paranoid type did not respond to typical antipsychotics. Five weeks after starting therapy with clozapine, she developed a clozapine-induced agranulocytosis (CA). Discontinuation of clozapine and treatment with granulocyte colony-stimulating factor (G-CSF) led to normalization of blood neutrophil counts within three weeks. This report suggests enhanced apoptosis of blood neutrophils during the acute phase of CA resulting from enhanced expression of the pro-apoptotic proteins Bax and BIK and from a decrease of the anti-apoptotic BCl-X(L) mRNA. The time course of decline and recovery of neutrophilic cells, as well as the release pattern of endogenous G-CSF, resembles those of chemotherapy-induced neutropenia. The kinetics of CD 34-positive cells mimics that of cytotoxic progenitor cell mobilization, e. g., after cytostatic drug administration. Our findings argue against the hypothesis that clozapine-mediated inhibition of G-CSF or granulocyte-macrophage colony-stimulating factor (GM-CSF) release is involved in CA development. Because clozapine-induced cell death mainly affects the neutrophil lineage, the elucidation of the exact mechanism of CA may open new perspectives for the treatment of psychiatric and possibly hematological disorders. |
| SCZ Keywords | schizophrenia, schizophrenic |
| 2 | J Clin Psychopharmacol 2005 Oct 25: 419-26 |
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| PMID | 16160616 |
| Title | Clozapine induces oxidative stress and proapoptotic gene expression in neutrophils of schizophrenic patients. |
| Abstract | The present study examined cellular effects of the atypical antipsychotic drug clozapine on blood cells of treated patients with and without clozapine-induced agranulocytosis (CA). Blood from one patient who commenced clozapine treatment was examined at weekly intervals for 128 days. Olanzapine-treated (n = 5) and polymedicated (n = 14) schizophrenic patients, as well as healthy subjects (n = 19) and septic shock patients (n = 8), were studied for comparison. We observed dramatically increased numbers of native neutrophils stained for superoxide anion production (P < or = 0.005, n = 10) and significantly elevated expression levels of the proapoptotic genes p53 (P < or = 0.020), bax alpha (P < or = 0.001), and BIK (P < or = 0.002) in all tested non-CA patients (n = 19) and CA patients (n = 4). In non-CA patients, the expression of these genes did not correlate to the percentage of apoptotic neutrophils (2.0% +/- 1.3%), but in CA patients about 37% of the neutrophils show morphologic signs of apoptosis (P < or = 0.001). Under G-CSF therapy of CA, the number of apoptotic neutrophils and the expression of the proapoptotic genes decreased significantly. In conclusion, high production of reactive oxygen species in neutrophils of clozapine-treated patients, together with increased expression of proapoptotic genes, suggests that neutrophils are predisposed to apoptosis in schizophrenic patients under clozapine therapy. The correlation between drug and proapoptotic markers was highest for clozapine and bax alpha as well as superoxide anion radicals. This indicates oxidative mitochondrial stress in neutrophils of clozapine-treated patients which probably contributes to the induction of apoptosis and sudden loss of neutrophils and their precursors in CA patients. |
| SCZ Keywords | schizophrenia, schizophrenic |
| 3 | Neurosci. Lett. 2009 Sep 463: 60-3 |
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| PMID | 19632297 |
| Title | No association between the Bcl2-interacting killer (BIK) gene and schizophrenia. |
| Abstract | The Bcl2-interacting killer (BIK) gene interacts with cellular and viral survival-promoting proteins, such as Bcl-2, to enhance apoptosis. The BIK protein promotes cell death in a manner analogous to Bcl-2-related death-promoting proteins, Bax and Bak. There have been lower Bcl-2 levels and increased Bax/Bcl-2 ratio in the temporal cortex of patients with schizophrenia compared with those in controls. Because the death-promoting activity of BIK was suppressed in the presence of the cellular and viral survival-promoting proteins, the BIK protein is suggested as a likely target for antiapoptotic proteins. The purpose of this study is to investigate the association between genetic variants in the BIK gene and schizophrenia in a large Japanese population (1181 patients with schizophrenia and 1243 healthy controls). We found nominal evidence for association of alleles, rs926328 (chi2=4.44, p=0.035, odds ratio=1.13) and rs2235316 (chi2=4.41, p=0.036, odds ratio=1.13), with schizophrenia. However, these associations were no longer positive after correction for multiple testing (rs926328: corrected p=0.105, rs2235316: corrected p=0.108). We conclude that BIK might not play a major role in the susceptibility of schizophrenia in Japanese population. |
| SCZ Keywords | schizophrenia, schizophrenic |