Project description:Aberrant DNA methylation and gene expression have been reported in postmortem brain tissues of psychotic patients, but until now there has been no systematic evaluation of synergistic changes in methylation and expression on a genome-wide scale in brain tissue. In this study, genome-wide methylation and expression analyses were performed on cerebellum samples from 39 patients with schizophrenia, 36 patients with bipolar disorder, and 43 unaffected controls, to screen for a correlation between gene expression and CpG methylation. Out of 71,753 CpG gene pairs (CGPs) tested across the genome, 204 were found to significantly correlate with gene expression after correction for multiple testing [p < 0.05, false discovery rate (FDR) q < 0.05]. The correlated CGPs were tested for disease-associated expression and methylation by comparing psychotic patients with bipolar disorder and schizophrenia to healthy controls. Four of the identified CGPs were found to significantly correlate with the differential expression and methylation of genes encoding phosphoinositide-3-kinase, regulatory subunit 1 (PIK3R1), butyrophilin, subfamily 3, member A3 (BTN3A3), nescient helix-loop-helix 1 (NHLH1), and solute carrier family 16, member 7 (SLC16A7) in psychotic patients (p < 0.05, FDR q < 0.2). Additional expression and methylation datasets were used to validate the relationship between DNA methylation, gene expression, and neuropsychiatric diseases. These results suggest that the identified differentially expressed genes with an aberrant methylation pattern may represent novel candidate factors in the etiology and pathology of neuropsychiatric disorders.
Project description:Schizophrenia is a complex psychiatric disorder encompassing a range of symptoms and etiology dependent upon the interaction of genetic and environmental factors. Several risk genes, such as DISC1, have been associated with schizophrenia as well as bipolar disorder (BPD) and major depressive disorder (MDD), consistent with the hypothesis that a shared genetic architecture could contribute to divergent clinical syndromes. The present study compared gene expression profiles across three brain regions in post-mortem tissue from matched subjects with schizophrenia, BPD or MDD and unaffected controls. Post-mortem brain tissue was collected from control subjects and well-matched subjects with schizophrenia, BPD, and MDD (n=19 from each group). RNA was isolated from hippocampus, Brodmann Area 46, and associative striatum and hybridized to U133_Plus2 Affymetrix chips. Data were normalized by RMA, subjected to pairwise comparison followed by Benjamini and Hochberg False Discovery Rate correction (FDR). Samples derived from patients with schizophrenia exhibited many more changes in gene expression across all brain regions than observed in BPD or MDD. Several genes showed changes in both schizophrenia and BPD, though the magnitude of change was usually larger in schizophrenia. Several genes that have variants associated with schizophrenia were found to have altered expression in multiple regions of brains from subjects with schizophrenia. Continued evaluation of circuit-level alterations in gene expression and gene-network relationships may further our understanding of how genetic variants may be influencing biological processes to contribute to psychiatric disease. Pre-frontal cortex, striatum and hippocampus were obtained from subjects with schizophrenia, bipolar disorder, major depressive disorder and matched controls.
Project description:We performed the oligonucleotide microarray analysis in bipolar disorder, major depression, schizophrenia, and control subjects using postmortem prefrontal cortices provided by the Stanley Foundation Brain Collection. By comparing the gene expression profiles of similar but distinctive mental disorders, we explored the uniqueness of bipolar disorder and its similarity to other mental disorders at the molecular level. Notably, most of the altered gene expressions in each disease were not shared by one another, suggesting the molecular distinctiveness of these mental disorders. We found a tendency of downregulation of the genes encoding receptor, channels or transporters, and upregulation of the genes encoding stress response proteins or molecular chaperons in bipolar disorder. Altered expressions in bipolar disorder shared by other mental disorders mainly consisted of upregulation of the genes encoding proteins for transcription or translation. The genes identified in this study would be useful for the understanding of the pathophysiology of bipolar disorder, as well as the common pathophysiological background in major mental disorders at the molecular level. Experiment Overall Design: A total of 50 postmortem brains obtained from the Stanley Medical Research Institute were used for DNA microarray analysis. Fresh frozen samples were used for RNA extraction.
Project description:We fine-mapped DNA methylation in neuronal nuclei (NeuN+) isolated by flow cytometry from post-mortem frontal cortex of the brain of individuals diagnosed with schizophrenia, bipolar disorder, and controls (n=29, 26, and 27 individuals).
Project description:We fine-mapped DNA methylation in neuronal nuclei (NeuN+) isolated by flow cytometry from post-mortem frontal cortex of the brain of individuals diagnosed with schizophrenia, bipolar disorder, and controls (n=29, 26, and 28 individuals).
Project description:We fine-mapped DNA methylation in neuronal nuclei (NeuN+) isolated by flow cytometry from post-mortem frontal cortex of the brain of individuals diagnosed with schizophrenia, bipolar disorder, and controls (n=29, 26, and 28 individuals).
