| 1. |
- Dries, Daniel R., et al.
(författare)
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Loss of Nicastrin from Oligodendrocytes Results in Hypomyelination and Schizophrenia with Compulsive Behavior
- 2016
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Ingår i: Journal of Biological Chemistry. - 0021-9258 .- 1083-351X. ; 291:22, s. 11647-11656
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Tidskriftsartikel (refereegranskat)abstract
- The biological underpinnings and the pathological lesions of psychiatric disorders are centuries-old questions that have yet to be understood. Recent studies suggest that schizophrenia and related disorders likely have their origins in perturbed neurodevelopment and can result from a large number of common genetic variants or multiple, individually rare genetic alterations. It is thus conceivable that key neurodevelopmental pathways underline the various genetic changes and the still unknown pathological lesions in schizophrenia. Here, we report that mice defective of the nicastrin subunit of gamma-secretase in oligodendrocytes have hypomyelination in the central nervous system. These mice have altered dopamine signaling and display profound abnormal phenotypes reminiscent of schizophrenia. In addition, we identify an association of the nicastrin gene with a human schizophrenia cohort. These observations implicate gamma-secretase and its mediated neurodevelopmental pathways in schizophrenia and provide support for the "myelination hypothesis" of the disease. Moreover, by showing that schizophrenia and obsessive-compulsive symptoms could be modeled in animals wherein a single genetic factor is altered, our work provides a biological basis that schizophrenia with obsessive-compulsive disorder is a distinct subtype of schizophrenia.
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| 2. |
- Forero, Diego A., et al.
(författare)
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A network of synaptic genes associated with schizophrenia and bipolar disorder
- 2016
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Ingår i: Schizophrenia Research. - : Elsevier BV. - 0920-9964 .- 1573-2509. ; 172:1-3, s. 68-74
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Tidskriftsartikel (refereegranskat)abstract
- Identification of novel candidate genes for schizophrenia (SZ) and bipolar disorder (BP), two psychiatric disorders with large epidemiological impacts, is a key research area in neurosciences and psychiatric genetics. Previous evidence from genome-wide studies suggests an important role for genes involved in synaptic plasticity in the risk for SZ and BP. We used a convergent genomics approach, combining different lines of biological evidence, to identify genes involved in the cAMP/PKA/CREB functional pathway that could be novel candidates for BP and SZ: CREB1, CREM, GRIN2C, NPY2R, NF1, PPP3CB and PRKAR1A. These 7 genes were analyzed in a HapMap based association study comprising 48 common SNPs in 486 SZ, 351 BP patients and 514 control individuals recruited from an isolated population in Northern Sweden. Genetic analysis showed significant allelic associations of SNPs in PRKAR1A with SZ and of PPP3CB and PRKAR1A with BP. Our results highlight the feasibility and the importance of convergent genomic data analysis for the identification of candidate genes and our data provide support for the role of common inherited variants in synaptic genes and their involvement in the etiology of BP and SZ.
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