Increased anti-Sm antibodies in schizophrenic patients and their families

Sirota, Pinkhas, Michael Firer, Klara Schield, Neomi Zurgil, Yoram Barak, Avner Elizur and Hanoch Slor: Increased Anti-Sm Antibodies in Schizophrenic Patients and their Families. Prog. Neuro-Psychopharmacol. & Biol. Psychiat. 1993, 17(5): 793-800. 1. 1. Autoantibodies in the Sm complex have become a useful serologic aid in the diagnosis of systemic lupus erythematosus (SLE) and have rarely been observed in other diseases. 2. 2. A subset of SLE patients have a variety of psychiatric abnormalities, including schizophrenia. 3. 3. The authors have recently observed that schizophrenic patients have a high incidence of autoantibodies suggesting that autoimmune phenomena may play a role in the pathogenesis of this disease. 4. 4. In the present study the authors investigated multicase families with schizo- phrenia for the presence of anti-Sm antibodies and showed that these autoanti- bodies are elevated both in patients and in their healthy relatives. 5. 5. An autoimmune process may be involved in the pathology of schizophrenia.