Bipolar disorder (BD) is a common psychiatric mood disorder affecting more than 1-2%
of the general population of different European countries. Unfortunately, there is no
objective laboratory-based test to aid BD diagnosis or monitor its progression, and
little is known about the molecular basis of BD. Here, we performed a comparative
proteomic study to identify differentially expressed plasma proteins in various BD
mood states (depressed BD, manic BD, and euthymic BD) relative to healthy controls. A
total of 10 euthymic BD, 20 depressed BD, 15 manic BD, and 20 demographically matched
healthy control subjects were recruited. Seven high-abundance proteins were
immunodepleted in plasma samples from the 4 experimental groups, which were then
subjected to proteome-wide expression profiling by two-dimensional electrophoresis
and matrix-assisted laser desorption/ionization-time-of-flight/time-of-flight tandem
mass spectrometry. Proteomic results were validated by immunoblotting and
bioinformatically analyzed using MetaCore. From a total of 32 proteins identified
with 1.5-fold changes in expression compared with healthy controls, 16 proteins were
perturbed in BD independent of mood state, while 16 proteins were specifically
associated with particular BD mood states. Two mood-independent differential
proteins, apolipoprotein (Apo) A1 and Apo L1, suggest that BD pathophysiology may be
associated with early perturbations in lipid metabolism. Moreover, down-regulation of
one mood-dependent protein, carbonic anhydrase 1 (CA-1), suggests it may be involved
in the pathophysiology of depressive episodes in BD. Thus, BD pathophysiology may be
associated with early perturbations in lipid metabolism that are independent of mood
state, while CA-1 may be involved in the pathophysiology of depressive episodes.
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