The Hindu : New Delhi News : Medical breakthrough by Indian scientists

Online edition of India's National Newspaper
Tuesday, Dec 28, 2004

New Delhi

New Delhi

Medical breakthrough by Indian scientists

By Bindu Shajan Perappadan

NEW DELHI, DEC. 27. In a discovery that could change our understanding and treatment of schizophrenia, Indian scientists have inched closer to developing a "schizophrenia screening technique'' and have been granted a US patent for the same.

A project partnered by the Institute of Genomics and Integrative Biology (IGIB) and the Bangalore-based National Institute of Mental Health and Neurosciences (NIMHANS), it had a team of Indian scientists coming up with the discovery that "genetic mutation'' is what could possibly take the blame for making certain people being more susceptible to schizophrenia.

Most importantly, however, the team has developed pointers to understanding and maybe even screening those who could fall prey to the disease.

Schizophrenia is a psychiatric disorder impairing a person's ability to deal with emotions, think logically and adjust socially. Symptoms include hallucinations, delusions, disordered thinking and social withdrawal and, according to available data, one out of every 10 schizophrenics ends up committing suicide.

Why the discovery is so relevant can be understood by the fact that there is no laboratory test to diagnose schizophrenia and patients are examined through clinical interviews.

The Indian scientists -- Director of the Institute of Genomics and Integrated Biology (IGIB), Samir Kumar Brahmachari, and Additional Professor at the National Institute of Mental Health and Neuro-Sciences (NIMHANS), Sanjeev Jain - picked up the thread from their previous work and other reports that showed that the expression of the synaptogyrin gene was decreased in the brains of patients with schizophrenia, and decided to investigate this gene in a more comprehensive manner.

Synaptogyrin (gene) codes for a protein that influences a nerve cell's ability to respond to signals, and that is where the key to this "discovery'' is.

The scientists in their research work studied three generations of a family that had three schizophrenics and found that all three siblings with schizophrenia "had a genetic sequence that would expressed abnormally while this defect was absent in other members of the family,'' explained Dr. Jain, while stating that the discovery should be taken with a "pinch of salt''. "There could be many other genes that are responsible for the condition and this could just be the tip of the iceberg.''

According to Dr. Jain, genetic alteration that hinders the full capacity utilisation of synaptogyrin occurs in a region in the human chromosome 22 and the work done in the area so far has identified that a number of genes are linked to schizophrenia.

"What makes our study particularly significant is that we have not only unravelled the molecular mechanism of the gene, but also proposed how it could actually work in a disease condition," says Dr. Jain.

The functions of many other genes associated with schizophrenia are not properly understood, he claimed. He admitted that a mutation in the synaptogyrin gene was rare, with only one in 400 patients having it.

However, researchers maintain that clinical application of the work will take time till the development of DNA chips or the next-generation diagnostic kits that carry thousands of genes on a single computer chip, where in almost all genes implicated in a given disease can instantaneously screen people for possible genetic predisposition to various ailments.

In addition, a better biological understanding of this complex disease may open up areas for therapeutics and drug discovery.

Printer friendly page
Send this article to Friends by E-Mail

New Delhi

News Update

Stories in this Section