Disassociative states like Schizophrenia or psychosis seems to have a plethora of dysregulated organic pathways. Today we take a look at the Ubiquitin proteasome system. The Ubiquitin proteasome system is tagging unwanted or abnormal proteins. Dysfunction of these systems results in a buildup of malfunctioning proteins and is emerging as an important factor in neurodegenerative diseases.

New research show that the ubiquitin proteasome pathway was listed in the top ten canonical pathways for Bipolar Disorder and psychosis diagnostic groups across both samples with a considerably low likelihood of a chance occurrence
Preliminary evidence of ubiquitin proteasome system dysregulation in schizophrenia and bipolar disorder: convergent pathway analysis findings from two independent samples.

Why the interest in Ubiquitin protease?
Well the reactive agent in CAC-Hålet theory results in protease inhibitors, CS2 is known to metabolize to dithiocarbamate complexes and they tend to be strong protease inhibitors. This could in fact be an explanation to why the ubiquitin protease system is disturbed in Schizophrenia since the group already is known to have CS2 in their systems.

This pathway can possibly also explain why persons with Schizophrenia tends to have a lower rate of cancer when  the risk factors are calculated, since protease inhibitors is probably the mothers of anticancer therapies.
Disulfiram’s anticancer effects are getting interesting and its main
metabolite is CS2 – The same agent that the CAC-Hålet theory hypothesizes as a possible reactive factor in the etiology of Schizophrenia.

Targeting of Nuclear Factor-kB andproteasome by Dithiocarbamate.