BackgroundThere is increasing evidence that immune dysfunction plays an important role in the pathogenesis of schizophrenia. Meso Scale Discovery (MSD) is bioanalytical method, which can detect serum inflammatory factors in patients. MSD has higher sensitivities, capturing a narrower range of proteins compared to other methods typically used in similar studies. The present study was aimed to explore the correlation between the levels of serum inflammatory factors and psychiatric symptoms in patients with schizophrenia at different stages and investigate a wide panel of inflammatory factors as independent factors for the pathogenesis of schizophrenia.MethodsWe recruited 116 participants, including patients with first-episode schizophrenia (FEG,n= 40), recurrence patients (REG,n= 40) with relapse-episode schizophrenia, and a control group (healthy people, HP,n= 36). Patients are diagnosed according to the DSM -V. The plasma levels of IFN-γ, IL-10, IL-1β, IL-2, IL-6, TNF-α, CRP, VEGF, IL-15, and IL-16 were tested by the MSD technique. Patient-related data was collected, including sociodemographic data, positive and negative symptom scale (PANSS), and brief psychiatric rating scale (BPRS) and subscale scores. The independent sample T test, χ2 test, Analysis of covariance (ANCOVA), the least significant difference method (LSD), Spearman’s correlation test, binary logistic regression analysis and ROC curve analysis were used in this study.ResultsThere were significant differences in serum IL-1β (F= 2.37,P= 0.014) and IL-16 (F= 4.40,P< 0.001) levels among the three groups. The level of serum IL-1β in the first-episode group was significantly higher than in the recurrence group (F= 0.87,P= 0.021) and control group (F= 2.03,P= 0.013), but there was no significant difference between the recurrence group and control group (F= 1.65,P= 0.806). The serum IL-16 levels in the first-episode group (F= 1.18,P< 0.001) and the recurrence group (F= 0.83,P< 0.001) were significantly higher than in the control group, and there was no significant difference between the first-episode group and the recurrence group (F= 1.65,P= 0.61). Serum IL-1β was negatively correlated with the general psychopathological score (GPS) of PANSS (R=-0.353,P= 0.026). In the recurrence group, serum IL-16 was positively correlated with the negative score (NEG) of the PANSS scale (R = 0.335,P= 0.035) and negatively correlated with the composite score (COM) (R=-0.329,P= 0.038). In the study, IL-16 levels were an independent variable of the onset of schizophrenia both in the first-episode (OR = 1.034,P= 0.002) and recurrence groups (OR = 1.049,P= 0.003). ROC curve analysis showed that the areas under IL-16(FEG) and IL-16(REG) curves were 0.883 (95%CI:0.794–0.942) and 0.887 (95%CI:0.801–0.950).ConclusionsSerum IL-1β and IL-16 levels were different between patients with schizophrenia and healthy people. Serum IL-1β levels in first-episode schizophrenia and serum IL-16 levels in relapsing schizophrenia were correlated with the parts of psychiatric symptoms. The IL-16 level may be an independent factor associating with the onset of schizophrenia.