Project description:Schizophrenia patients vary in their response to antipsychotic (AP) treatment and predicting if and which therapy will be efficient is of high clinical and social importance. Here, we set out to analyze blood methylomes of 28 schizophrenia patients just before starting (baseline) risperidone treatment and four weeks later (follow-up) in order to look for differences that may help predict variation in response. We were not able to identify CpGs whose baseline methylation could be used as a predictive biomarker, but our analysis suggests the role of methylation status of genes involved in immunity, neurotransmission and neuronal development in the treatment response.
Project description:Schizophrenia (SZ) is a serious mental disorder that is typically treated with antipsychotic medication. Treatment-resistant schizophrenia (TRS) is the condition where symptoms remain after pharmacological intervention, resulting in long-lasting functional and social impairments. As the identification and treatment of a TRS patient requires previous failed treatments, early mechanisms of detection are needed in order to quicken the access to effective therapy, as well as improve treatment adherence. In this study, we aim to find a microRNA (miRNA) signature for TRS, as well as to shed some light on the molecular pathways potentially involved in this severe condition. To do this, we compared the blood miRNAs of schizophrenia patients that respond to medication and TRS patients, thus obtaining a 16-miRNA TRS profile. Then, we assessed the ability of this signature to separate responders and TRS patients using hierarchical clustering, observing that most of them are grouped correctly (~70% accuracy). We also conducted a network, pathway analysis, and bibliography search to spot molecular pathways potentially altered in TRS. We found that the response to stress seems to be a key factor in TRS and that proteins p53, SIRT1, MDM2, and TRIM28 could be the potential mediators of such responses. Finally, we suggest a molecular pathway potentially regulated by the miRNAs of the TRS profile.
Project description:Antipsychotics are the main line of treatment for schizophrenia, despite being effective only in about 50% of patients. Additionally, serious side effects may cause medication drop-out, aggravated by a lack of understanding about how these drugs act at molecular level. As proteomics is a suitable tool for studying multifactorial disorders, the main goal was to unravel signaling pathways in blood plasma associated with a positive treatment outcome for the atypical antipsychotics olanzapine and risperidone. Blood plasma was collected from schizophrenia patients six weeks after treatment (T6), and patients were classified as good or poor responders to olanzapine or risperidone, and then samples were compared to each patient's baseline (T0). All samples were analyzed using label-free quantitative shotgun proteomics. Samples were depleted of the 14 most abundant proteins in plasma, were digested, and then submitted to M-Class two-dimensional nano-liquid chromatography, coupled online to a Synapt G2-Si mass spectrometer. Data was obtained in MSE mode (data- independent acquisition) in combination with ion-mobility (HDMSE). The proteins found to be differentially abundant in good responders compared to poor responders for risperidone and olanzapine were functionally analyzed in silico using Ingenuity® Pathway Analysis and were found to be mostly involved with immune system functions. This data can contribute to better understand the biochemical signaling peripherally triggered by antipsychotic medication, and can eventually be used to help improve treatment outcome by predicting patient response as well as through the development of new medication or a combination of drugs that act on the immune system to reduce the duration of poor response periods in patients suffering with schizophrenia.
Project description:Schizophrenia is a severe psychiatric disease with complex etiology, affecting approximately one percent of the general population. Most genetic studies so far focused on disease association with common genetic variation such as single nucleotide polymorphisms, but recently it has become apparent that large-scale genomic copy number variants (CNVs) are involved in disease development as well. To assess the role of rare CNVs in schizophrenia, we screened 54 patients with deficit schizophrenia using Affymetrix’ GeneChip 250K SNP arrays. Keywords: genomic hybridisation
Project description:Schizophrenia is a severe psychiatric disease with complex etiology, affecting approximately one percent of the general population. Most genetic studies so far focused on disease association with common genetic variation such as single nucleotide polymorphisms, but recently it has become apparent that large-scale genomic copy number variants (CNVs) are involved in disease development as well. To assess the role of rare CNVs in schizophrenia, we screened 54 patients with deficit schizophrenia using Affymetrixâ GeneChip 250K SNP arrays. Keywords: genomic hybridisation We hybridized genomic DNA of 54 patients with deficit schizophrenia to Affymetrix' GeneChip 250K SNP (Nsp) arrays, and identified genome-wide CNV using the Copy Number Analyzer for Affymetrix GeneChip (CNAG v2.0) software, which uses a Hidden Markov Model (HMM) algorithm to calculate copy numbers.
Project description:Analysis of cortical samples corresponding to the crus I/VIIa area of the cerebellum from schizophrenia patients. A study indicates that targets of the RNA-binding ELAV-like protein HuD are overexpressed in the prefrontal cortex of patients with schizophrenia.
Project description:Recent studies suggest that genetic and environmental factors do not account for all the schizophrenia risk and epigenetics also plays a role in disease susceptibility. DNA methylation is a heritable epigenetic modification that can regulate gene expression. Genome-Wide DNA methylation analysis was performed on post-mortem human brain tissue from 24 patients with schizophrenia and 24 unaffected controls. DNA methylation was assessed at over 485 000 CpG sites using the Illumina Infinium Human Methylation450 Bead Chip. After adjusting for age and post-mortem interval (PMI), 4 641 probes corresponding to 2 929 unique genes were found to be differentially methylated. Of those genes, 1 291 were located in a CpG island and 817 were in a promoter region. These include NOS1, AKT1, DTNBP1, DNMT1, PPP3CC and SOX10 which have previously been associated with schizophrenia. More than 100 of these genes overlap with a previous DNA methylation study of peripheral blood from schizophrenia patients in which 27 000 CpG sites were analysed. Unsupervised clustering analysis of the top 3 000 most variable probes revealed two distinct groups with significantly more people with schizophrenia in cluster one compared to controls (p = 1.74x10-4). The first cluster was composed of 88% of patients with schizophrenia and only 12% controls while the second cluster was composed of 27% of patients with schizophrenia and 73% controls. These results strongly suggest that differential DNA methylation is important in schizophrenia etiology and add support for the use of DNA methylation profiles as a future prognostic indicator of schizophrenia Genome-Wide DNA methylation analysis was performed on post-mortem human brain tissue from 24 patients with schizophrenia and 24 unaffected controls. DNA methylation was assessed at over 485 000 CpG sites using the Illumina Infinium Human Methylation450 Bead Chip.
Project description:Recent studies suggest that genetic and environmental factors do not account for all the schizophrenia risk and epigenetics also plays a role in disease susceptibility. DNA methylation is a heritable epigenetic modification that can regulate gene expression. Genome-Wide DNA methylation analysis was performed on post-mortem human brain tissue from 24 patients with schizophrenia and 24 unaffected controls. DNA methylation was assessed at over 485 000 CpG sites using the Illumina Infinium Human Methylation450 Bead Chip. After adjusting for age and post-mortem interval (PMI), 4 641 probes corresponding to 2 929 unique genes were found to be differentially methylated. Of those genes, 1 291 were located in a CpG island and 817 were in a promoter region. These include NOS1, AKT1, DTNBP1, DNMT1, PPP3CC and SOX10 which have previously been associated with schizophrenia. More than 100 of these genes overlap with a previous DNA methylation study of peripheral blood from schizophrenia patients in which 27 000 CpG sites were analysed. Unsupervised clustering analysis of the top 3 000 most variable probes revealed two distinct groups with significantly more people with schizophrenia in cluster one compared to controls (p = 1.74x10-4). The first cluster was composed of 88% of patients with schizophrenia and only 12% controls while the second cluster was composed of 27% of patients with schizophrenia and 73% controls. These results strongly suggest that differential DNA methylation is important in schizophrenia etiology and add support for the use of DNA methylation profiles as a future prognostic indicator of schizophrenia