Decreased plasma neuroactive amino acids and increased nitric oxide levels in melancholic major depressive disorder

BackgroundAmino acid neurotransmitters and nitric oxide (NO) are involved in the pathogenesis of major depressive disorder (MDD). Here we want to establish whether changes in their plasma levels may serve as biomarker for the melancholic subtype of this disorder.MethodsPlasma levels of glutamic acid (Glu), aspartic acid (Asp), glycine (Gly), gamma-aminobutyric acid (GABA), and NO were determined in 27 medicine-naïve melancholic MDD patients and 30 matched controls. Seven of the MDD patients participated also in a follow-up study after 2 months’ antidepressant treatment. The relationship between plasma and cerebral-spinal fluid (CSF) levels of these compounds was analyzed in an additional group of 10 non-depressed subjects.ResultsThe plasma levels of Asp, Gly and GABA were significantly lower whereas the NO levels were significantly higher in melancholic MDD patients, also after 2 months of fluoxetine treatment. In the additional 10 non-depressed subjects, no significant correlation was observed between plasma and CSF levels of these compounds.ConclusionThese data give the first indication that decreased plasma levels of Asp, Gly and GABA and increased NO levels may serve as a clinical trait-marker for melancholic MDD. The specificity and selectivity of this putative trait-marker has to be investigated in follow-up studies.

• Publication year

  2014

• Venue

  BMC Psychiatry

• Publication date

  2014-04-27

• Fields of study

  Medicine, Chemistry, Psychology

• Identifiers
  DOI 10.1186/1471-244X-14-123PMID 24767108PMCID 4036745
• External record

  Open on Semantic Scholar

• Source metadata

  Semantic Scholar, PubMed

• No claims are published for this paper.

• No concepts are published for this paper.

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