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ORIGINAL RESEARCH article

Front. Psychiatry

Sec. Molecular Psychiatry

Volume 16 - 2025 | doi: 10.3389/fpsyt.2025.1675129

Th17-Related Cytokines and Chemokines Are Associated with Immune Dysregulation and Severity in Schizophrenia

Provisionally accepted
Han  LiangHan Liang1Jing  XuJing Xu2*
  • 1Huai'an Huai'an Hospital, Huai'an, China
  • 2Huai’an Hospital, Huai’an, China

The final, formatted version of the article will be published soon.

Background: Schizophrenia is a complex neuropsychiatric disorder increasingly recognized as involving neuroimmune dysregulation. Among immune pathways, the Th17 axis and chemokine-mediated signaling have gained attention for their roles in chronic inflammation and neurotoxicity. Objectives: This study aimed to examine serum levels of Th17-related cytokines (IL-17, IL-21, IL-22, IL-23) and chemokines (CCL2, CCL5, CCL20, CXCL10, IL-8) in schizophrenia patients compared to healthy controls and to explore their associations with symptom severity and laboratory parameters. Methods: A total of 77 schizophrenia patients and 41 healthy controls were assessed. We used ELISA to find out how much cytokines and chemokines were in the serum. The Positive and Negative Syndrome Scale (PANSS) was used to rate how bad the symptoms were. We used Mann–Whitney U tests, Spearman correlations and principal component analysis (PCA) to look at the data. Results: Patients had much greater levels of IL-17, IL-22, IL-8and CCL20 (p < 0.001), as well as higher levels of CXCL10 and CCL5 and lower levels of CCL2. IL-17, IL-21, IL-22and CCL2 all had positive relationships with the intensity of negative symptoms (N-PANSS). PCA showed that immunological markers grouped in different ways, with IL-21/IL-23 and IL-17/IL-8 being the most important inflammatory parts. Conclusion: Our results suggest that Th17-related inflammation plays a key role in schizophrenia, especially when it comes to negative symptoms. Immune marker profiling may help us understand how diseases work and find subgroups that may be treated in a more tailored way.

Keywords: Schizophrenia, Cytokines, Chemokines, Th17 pathway, Neuroinflammation, IL-17, CCL20, Immune dysregulation

Received: 01 Aug 2025; Accepted: 29 Sep 2025.

Copyright: © 2025 Liang and Xu. This is an open-access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License (CC BY). The use, distribution or reproduction in other forums is permitted, provided the original author(s) or licensor are credited and that the original publication in this journal is cited, in accordance with accepted academic practice. No use, distribution or reproduction is permitted which does not comply with these terms.

* Correspondence: Jing Xu, 18762083600@163.com

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