Abstract
IN spite of reports of altered nuclear morphology of blood cells1–3 and evidence advocating the participation of genetic factors in schizophrenia4,5, little attention has been paid to the possibility that altered chromatin is associated with this mental illness. Since research in this area may further the understanding of the mechanisms underlying the disease, we compared the chromatin of schizophrenics and normal subjects6,7, using the neutrophil granulocyte as a model of fully differentiated, non-dividing cells with fixed heterochromatisation. Our approach was based on current knowledge of chromatin8–10 and focused on the particular roles of the various histone fractions in determining chromatin structure and function11,12. The results obtained from the initial study6 showed that schizophrenics differ from controls in their nucleohistone staining pattern. This is characterised mainly by an increased availability of arginine-rich histones7 to the anionic phosphotungstic acid–haematoxylin (PTAH) staining reagent13. We interpreted this as indicating an increased readiness of the nucleohistones in the schizophrenics to undergo conformational changes leading to unmasking of such proteins. Considering the role of lysine-rich histone H1 in cross linking the chromatin11,12,14, we tentatively proposed that in schizophrenics histone H1 tends to dissociate more readily from the chromatin complex.
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ISSIDORIDES, M., STEFANIS, C., VARSOU, E. et al. Altered chromatin ultrastructure in neutrophils of schizophrenics. Nature 258, 612–614 (1975). https://doi.org/10.1038/258612a0
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1038/258612a0
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