A Study of Optical Densities of Salivary Proteins in Schizophrenia

Background: Biomarkers are useful in diagnosing many illnesses, the biomarker (salivary proteins) which are used in this study might help in confirming the diagnosis of schizophrenia. Hypothesis: Variations in optical densities of salivary proteins in schizophrenia are diagnostic. Aims & Objectives: 1) To record optical densities of salivary proteins in schizophrenia. 2)To compare the optical densities of salivary proteins in schizophrenia with salivary proteins of individuals not having any psychiatric disorder. Method: This study is conducted at Government Hospital for Mental Care, Visakhapatnam in collaboration with the Biochemistry Department, Andhra University, Visakhapatnam.The Salivary samples of 2-3ml in 70 schizophrenia patients and 40 controls were taken. The salivary samples were processed and 10 samples of 50 micro-liters each were taken at a time and run under 12% SDS-PAGE with a low molecular weight protein marker as a reference. The bands were numbered and molecular weights were taken using Gel-Doc technique. The optical densities were identified using buffer elution method and compared for variations with the controls. Results & Conclusion: There is a change in optical densities of salivary protein’s which is significant in the regions of 20.1 – 40.3kDa (p=0.014) and in 14.3 – 20.1kDa (p=0.01) but the change in the region of 43 – 97.4 kDa was not significant (p=0.069).