Serum protein markers in schizophrenia: Haptoglobin, transferrin and group-specific component types

Abstract

One hundred and ten Chinese male patients with schizophrenia were investigated for the phenotypic distribution of three polymorphic serum protein systems - haptoglobin, transferrin and group-specific component. The distribution of these polymorphic systems were compared with those in a healthy control group of 110 Chinese male blood donors. The relative incidence of Hp1-1/Hp2-1+2-2 was found to be 0.51 and the gene frequencies of Hp1 in patient and control groups were 0.2818 and 0.3227, respectively. The distribution of transferrin types was identical in the two groups. The relative incidence of Gc2-2/Gc2-1+1-1 was 1.82 with a higher frequency of Gc2 (0.3177) in schizophrenia compared with that in the control group (0.2545). However, the difference in the distribution of haptoglobin and group-specific component fell short of the significance level due to the small size of the sample.