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Scientists announce discovery related to schizophrenia drug

Biologists at National Sun Yat-sen University have discovered that drug resistance among certain schizophrenia patients is related to a chromosome abnormality, sources at the Kaohsiung-based university said yesterday.

"The key is the telomere," said Cho Chung-lung (卓忠隆), a team member and associate professor at the Department of Biological Sciences, noting that drug resistant patients have a faster rate of telomere shortening.

Telomere, a section of DNA at the ends of each chromosome, functions as a buffer to prevent degradation, translocation or fusion among individual chromosomes. However, during every DNA replication process, although other sections can be completely duplicated, the telomere will miss a small part because DNA polymerase is incapable of replicating all parts of telomere.

Cho said that scientists have discovered that a cell dies when the telomere is reduced to a minimal length, and therefore have come to the conclusion that telomeric depletion is closely related to the aging process.

Cho said they began the project based on the hypothesis that recognition disorders suffered by schizophrenic patients are part of the aging process in humans, so they set the goal of finding out if schizophrenic patients age at a faster rate and if there is a correlation between telomere dysfunction and the disease.

Citing the results of experiments to be published by the Journal of Psychiatry and Neuroscience, Cho said they found that telomeric depletion occurs at a faster rate among schizophrenic patients with drug resistance, while schizophrenic patients without the symptom have a depletion rate similar to that of normal people.

"We hope that this finding can be applied to patients," Cho said, adding that patients could be testing to determine what kind of medication is best suited to their conditions.
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