A CSF and postmortem brain study of D-serine metabolic parameters in schizophrenia

Clinical trials demonstrated that D-serine administration improves schizophrenia symptoms, raising the possibility that altered levels of endogenous D-serine may contribute to the N-methyl D-aspartate receptor hypofunction thought to play a role in the disease. We hypothesized that cerebro-spinal fluid (CSF) D-serine levels are decreased in the patients due to reduced synthesis and/or increased degradation in brain. We now monitored amino acid levels in CSF from 12 schizophrenia patients vs. 12 controls and in postmortem parietal-cortex from 15 control subjects and 15 each of schizophrenia, major-depression and bipolar patients. In addition, we monitored postmortem brain serine racemase and D-amino acid oxidase protein levels by Westem-blot analysis. We found a 25% decrease in D-serine levels and D/L-serine ratio in CSF of schizophrenia patients, while parietal-cortex D-serine was unaltered. Levels Of L-serine, L-glutamine and L-glutamate were unaffected. Frontal-cortex (39%) and hippocampal (21%) serine racemase protein levels and bippocampal serine racemase/D-amino acid oxidase ratio (34%) were reduced. Hippocampal D-ammokid-oxidase piotein levels significantly correlated with duration of illness (r = 0.6, p = 0.0 19) but not age. D-amino acid oxidase levels in patients with DOI > 20 years were 77% significantly higher than in the other patients and controls. Our results suggest that reduced brain serine racemase and elevated D-amino acid oxidase protein levels may contribute to the lower CSF D-serine levels in schizophrenia. (c) 2006 Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved.