Protein interaction networks link schizophrenia risk loci to synaptic function

Abstract. Schizophrenia is a severe and highly heritable psychiatric disorder affecting approximately 1% of the population. Genome-wide association studies have identified 108 independent genetic loci with genome-wide significance but their functional importance has yet to be elucidated. Here, we de...

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Bibliographic Details
Main Authors: Schwarz, Emanuel (Author) , Meyer-Lindenberg, Andreas (Author)
Format: Article (Journal)
Language:English
Published: 07 April 2016
In: Schizophrenia bulletin
Year: 2016, Volume: 42, Issue: 6, Pages: 1334-1342
ISSN:1745-1701
DOI:10.1093/schbul/sbw035
Online Access:Verlag, Volltext: https://doi.org/10.1093/schbul/sbw035
Verlag, Volltext: https://academic.oup.com/schizophreniabulletin/article/42/6/1334/2399330
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Author Notes:Emanuel Schwarz, Rauf Izmailov, Pietro Liò, Andreas Meyer-Lindenberg
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Summary:Abstract. Schizophrenia is a severe and highly heritable psychiatric disorder affecting approximately 1% of the population. Genome-wide association studies have identified 108 independent genetic loci with genome-wide significance but their functional importance has yet to be elucidated. Here, we develop a novel strategy based on network analysis of protein–protein interactions (PPI) to infer biological function associated with variants most strongly linked to illness risk. We show that the schizophrenia loci are strongly linked to synaptic transmission ( PFWE < .001) and ion transmembrane transport ( PFWE = .03), but not to ontological categories previously found to be shared across psychiatric illnesses. We demonstrate that brain expression of risk-linked genes within the identified processes is strongly modulated during birth and identify a set of synaptic genes consistently changed across multiple brain regions of adult schizophrenia patients. These results suggest synaptic function as a developmentally determined schizophrenia process supported by the illness’s most associated genetic variants and their PPI networks. The implicated genes may be valuable targets for mechanistic experiments and future drug development approaches.
Item Description:Gesehen am 24.06.2019
Physical Description:Online Resource
ISSN:1745-1701
DOI:10.1093/schbul/sbw035