Investigation of relationship between schizophrenia and bipolar disorders with infections agents

Schizophrenia is a chronic disease which starts at an early age and continue forever. Despite being an important mental illness which is characterized by positive and negative symptoms, its exact cause is still unknown. Bipolar disorder (BP) is one of the major mental disease which is characterized by recurrent manic and depressive episodes with periods of wellness called euthymia. The average prevalance and incidence rates of these diseases are reported as 1% and 10-54/100.000 respectively. According to the results of epidemiological studies, it has been claimed that some congenital and postpartum infections in the intrauterine period, especially in 2nd Trimester, may play a role for the occurrence of these diseases. In this study, it was investigated the possible relationship of Toxoplasma gondii 'Bornavirus, Chlamydia pneumonia, Chlamydia trachomatis, cytomegalovirus (CMV), herpes simplex virus 1 (HSV1), herpes simplex virus 2 (HSV2), and Treponema pallidum seroprevalance which are associated with psychic disorders. Furthermore Sandwich EIA method was used for detection of the presence of Bornavirus infection in peripheral blood samples to diagnose Endogenous Bornavirus. To identify a possible relationship, the comparison was done between seroprevalence and EBLN1 incidence results obtained from patients who were diagnosed as schizophrenia and bipolar ones treated in psychiatry clinic and the results obtained from blood and serum samples of healthy individuals. For this purpose; serum samples collected from 258 patients consisting of 96 female and 162 male observed in psychiatry clinics and from healthy asymptomatic 150 donors including 100 male and 50 female who came to the blood centers to donate blood, were evaluated by using serological diagnostic methods. As a result of the study, a significant difference was not detected among seropositivity rates of CMV, HSV-I, HSV-II and T. Pallidum (T. gondii, T. palliduum, C. pneumoni to C. trachomatis, Bornavirus, CMV, HSV I, HSV II ) in the patients and control groups. In statistical aspects, seroprevalence of T. gondii and Chlamydia pneumoniae in patients (93.02% and 68.99%) were found to be significantly higher than the seropositivity rate of the control groups (63.33% and 50%). Despite C. trachomatis showed a statistically significant difference between patients and control group of women compared to patients and control group of men, but significant difference were not detected in whole investigated population. BVLN-1 belonged to Borne Virus were detected only in the blood samples of 4 men (2.46%) in the patient group. Based on study results, T. gondii and C. pneumoniae carry higher risk in patients with schizophrenia and bipolar disorders compared to control ones. ELISA method was used in all of the test sera included seroprevalence for the detection of passed/current Bornavirus, Chlamydia pneumonia, Chlamydia trachomatis, CMV, HSV1, HSV2, Toxoplasma gondii and Treponema pallidum infections.