Abstract
Circulating autoantibodies against glutamatergic N-methyl-D-aspartate receptor (NMDAR) have been reported in a proportion of patients
with psychotic disorders, raising hopes for more appropriate treatment for these antibody-positive
patients. However, the prevalence of circulating autoantibodies against glutamatergic
NMDAR in psychotic disorders remains controversial, with detection prevalence rates
and immunoglobulin classes varying considerably between studies, perhaps because of
different detection methods. Here, we compared the results of serum assays for a large
cohort of patients with first-episode psychosis using classical cell-based assays
in three labs and a single molecule-based imaging method. Most assays and single molecule
imaging in live hippocampal neurons revealed the presence of circulating autoantibodies
against glutamatergic NMDAR in approximately 5% of patients with first-episode psychosis.
However, some heterogeneity between cell-based assays was clearly observed, highlighting
the urgent need for new sensitive methods to detect the presence of low-titer autoantibodies
against glutamatergic NMDAR in seropositive patients who cannot be clinically identified
from seronegative ones.
Keywords
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Article info
Publication history
Published online: July 05, 2017
Accepted:
June 14,
2017
Received in revised form:
June 14,
2017
Received:
February 2,
2017
Identification
Copyright
© 2017 Published by Elsevier Inc on behalf of Society of Biological Psychiatry.