Upregulation of S100A8 in peripheral blood mononuclear cells from patients with depression treated with SSRIs: a pilot study

BACKGROUND: Major depressive disorder (MDD) affects more than 350 million people worldwide, and there is currently no laboratory test to diagnose it. This pilot study aimed to identify potential biomarkers in peripheral blood mononuclear cells (PBMCs) from MDD patients. METHODS: We used tandem mass tagging coupled to synchronous precursor selection (mass spectrometry) to obtain the differential proteomic profile from a pool of PBMCs from MDD patients and healthy subjects, and quantitative PCR to assess gene expression of differentially expressed proteins (DEPs) of our interest. RESULTS: We identified 247 proteins, of which 133 had a fold change ≥ 2.0 compared to healthy volunteers. Using pathway enrichment analysis, we found that some processes, such as platelet degranulation, coagulation, and the inflammatory response, are perturbed in MDD patients. The gene-disease association analysis showed that molecular alterations in PBMCs from MDD patients are associated with cerebral ischemia, vascular disease, thrombosis, acute coronary syndrome, and myocardial ischemia, in addition to other conditions such as inflammation and diabetic retinopathy. CONCLUSIONS: We confirmed by qRT-PCR that S100A8 is upregulated in PBMCs from MDD patients and thus could be an emerging biomarker of this disorder. This report lays the groundwork for future studies in a broader and more diverse population and contributes to a deeper characterization of MDD. SUPPLEMENTARY INFORMATION: The online version contains supplementary material available at 10.1186/s12953-023-00224-7.