Figure 1.

a, Western blot for DISC1 of cold Sarkosyl-insoluble pellets (top) and starting brain homogenates (bottom) of 60 individual cases (SMRI Consortium Collection) of schizophrenia (S), bipolar disorder (B), depression (D), and normal controls (N). Each lane corresponds to one case. Asterisks indicate immunoreactivity above threshold (defined as strongest background immunoreactivity in normal controls) in the insoluble pellet fraction. b, Scatter plot of the ratio of Sarkosyl-insoluble pelleted material (P) by the starting material (H) of DISC1 from diseased cases versus normal controls, quantified by densitometry of Western blots from a. Eighty-six percent of positive cases from a were also found to have a high P/H ratio. Calculation of P/H ratio leads to slight adjustments of positive cases relative to a, when the homogenate concentration was relatively abundant. The solid bold lines mark the arithmetic means. A pronounced scatter of P/H values is evident across the three disease groups; current clinical interview-based diagnostic protocols cannot avoid the grouping of pathological entities with different molecular underpinnings under a similar broad diagnostic category. Therefore, mean values for any of these groups, although of interest, should be relativized. Means of diseased (n = 45) versus normal (n = 15) brains was 1.6 versus 0.4, respectively (p = 0.002; ANOVA).