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Small genetic changes may increase risk of schizophrenia

June 18, 2017

Then, the researchers checked existing cases of schizophrenia to see if combinations of single-letter DNA changes in DISC1 and FEZ1 made people more susceptible to the disease. The researchers examined a large patient database, the Genetic Association Information Network, created by the National Institutes of Health to identify genome associated diseases. Using statistical approaches, the researchers examined four different single-letter DNA changes in the FEZ1 sequence from 1,351 schizophrenia cases and 1,378 healthy people. Single-letter DNA changes in FEZ1 alone did not contribute to schizophrenia risk. However, when the researchers looked at these four different FEZ1 DNA letter changes in combination with a DISC1 single DNA letter change already known to slightly increase schizophrenia risk, they found that one particular FEZ1 DNA change along with the DISC1 change significantly increased the risk of schizophrenia by two and a half times.

"By continuing to examine interactions of key genes involved with disease in cells and correlating the results with patient databases, we can begin to unravel the genetic contributions of psychiatric disorders that previously were a mystery to us," says Hongjun Song, Ph.D., professor of neurology and director of the Stem Cell Program at the Institute for Cell Engineering. "Finding sets of proteins, like FEZ1 and DISC1, that synergistically work together to cause disease will also give us new drug targets to develop new therapies."

Source: Neuron