الفهرس 
? The Purinergic Pathway, Serum Uric Acid and Major Mental IllnessOnly 14 pages are availabe for public view
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Abstract
has been hypothesized that uric acid as the end product of the metabolism of the purines, adenosine and guanosine, might be a marker reflecting the dysfunctions in adenosine transmission and antioxidant system, in different mental disorders, such as bipolar disorder, schizophrenia and Major depressive disorder, and that increased serum levels of uric acid may be a sign of an amplified purinergic turnover and a reduced adenosine transmission.
Based on that, this study was conducted at Institute of psychiatry, Ain shams university hospital, Cairo, Egypt, aiming to measure the difference in uric acid levels, between patients with schizophrenia and patients with bipolar disorder and patients with MDD. Two hundred (200) participants were included in this study (50 patients with schizophrenia and patients with bipolar disorder and patients with MDD) and compared with 50 healthy control matched for age and sex. Their age ranges between 18-65 years. The study took place from October 2019 till January 2020. All participants of the study were diagnosed (current and life time diagnosis) by DSM-IV and they underwent Structured Clinical Interview for DSM-IV Axis I Disorders (SCID-I) (to exclude any psychiatric comorbidity, Positive and Negative Syndrome Scale (PANSS), Young Mania Rating Scale (YMRS), and Hamilton Depression Rating Scale (HAM-D) was used according to diagnosis to asses symptoms and severity of disease; Healthy control underwent General Health Questionnaire (GHQ-28), to exclude mental illness. A blood draw to measure their serum uric acid was done on the day of assessment.
The main finding of our study found that patients with schizophrenia have the highest level of uric acid level in the 4 groups with a mean of 6.2, and MDD having the lowest values with an average of 4.9, with bipolar disorder patients coming second with a mean of 5.8, which was higher that the controls that had a mean of 5.6. But the difference between bipolar disorder and control, MDD and control, schizophrenia and control, were not of statistically significant value, as well as the difference between, bipolar disorder and MDD, bipolar disorder and Schizophrenia, and that the only statistically significant value was that of the difference between schizophrenia and MDD (p=0.004).