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At least 19 recordsLinked to original sources
PubMed2026

Whole-Exome and Whole-Genome Sequencing of Candidate Pharmacogenomic and Schizophrenia-Related Genes in Sudanese Families with Schizophrenia.

BACKGROUND: Schizophrenia is considered a neuro-developmental disorder leading to disastrous lifelong disability of the patients and their families. There is a lack of data regarding pharmacogenomics of schizophrenia in Sudan. This study aimed to identify different genes affecting the treatment outcomes in Sudanese patients with schizophrenia. METHODS: A case-control study was conducted on seven families having more than one member diagnosed with schizophrenia. This was a small exploratory family-based sequencing study involving 18 affected individuals and 8 controls from seven families. Ethical clearance and informed consent were obtained. Demographic data were collected using a standardized data collection sheet. DNA was extracted from blood samples collected from patients and control groups. Then, whole-exome and genome sequencing were performed. Sixty-six genes associated with schizophrenia, treatment, and treatment resistance were selected from the variant calling file. Variants showing single-nucleotide polymorphisms (SNPs) were identified. These variants were then classified based on their impact on the protein-coding sequence into high- and moderate-impact. Moreover, indel mutations were also identified. RESULTS: Twelve variants of seven genes (COMT, FMO1, LPL, CYP2E1, ABCC1, GRM3, CYP2C9) were identified as genes with impact and potential association with schizophrenia (p-value=0.006632). Forty-three genes had a moderate impact, and they showed a potential association with schizophrenia (p-value=0.0004436). Two variants were indel mutations (CYP2D6, DTNBP1) and showed association with schizophrenia (p-value=0.004741). The p-values were generated from different databases. CONCLUSION: This exploratory family-based sequencing study identified several potentially relevant pharmacogenomic and schizophrenia-associated variants in Sudanese families, warranting validation in larger and ethnically diverse cohorts.

antipsychotics↗
PubMed2026

Distinct contributions of schizophrenia and neurotransmitter pathway genetic liability to neurocognition and antipsychotic efficacy in drug-naïve first-episode schizophrenia.

The genetic mechanisms underlying heterogeneity in symptom presentation and antipsychotic response in schizophrenia remain unclear, limiting the development of personalized treatment. We integrated genome-wide schizophrenia polygenic risk scores (SZ-PRS) and pathway-specific PRSs (pPRSs) for four major neurotransmitter systems to examine their associations with clinical phenotypes across the course of illness. Primary analyses were conducted in 394 drug-naïve, first-episode patients from the Chinese First-Episode Schizophrenia Trial (CNFEST) to investigate associations with baseline symptom severity, neurocognitive impairment, and longitudinal treatment response. The CNFEST cohort included 52-week longitudinal assessments of symptoms and neurocognition using the Positive and Negative Syndrome Scale and a modified version of the MATRICS Consensus Cognitive Battery. An independent case-control cohort evaluated associations with schizophrenia diagnosis, while a cohort of 514 healthy adults assessed whether PRS-cognition associations are specific to schizophrenia. Higher SZ-PRS predicted schizophrenia diagnosis (OR = 2.28, Pfdr = 0.003) and poorer baseline executive function (β = -0.44, Pfdr = 0.006) and working memory (β = -0.49, Pfdr = 0.018), but these associations were absent in healthy adults. In contrast, pPRSs showed weaker associations with diagnosis and baseline cognition but were more informative for treatment outcomes: higher serotonin-pPRS predicted greater improvement in depressive symptoms (Pfdr = 0.023-0.032), and higher GABA-pPRS predicted greater improvement in overall symptoms (Pfdr = 0.038-0.043) during weeks 4-24. Exploratory drug-specific analyses further suggested that treatment response varied across antipsychotics and was differentially associated with pPRSs. These findings demonstrate that genome-wide and pathway-specific PRSs contribute distinctly to schizophrenia phenotypes, supporting their integration for personalized stratification and treatment.

Humans↗
PubMed1978

[Age-related dynamics of outpatient forms of schizophrenia (on the age-related dynamics of so-called latent schizophrenia in light of late catamneses in senescence)].

The report contains a study of 45 patients aged 60--84 in whom during the entire life there were gradually increasing subclinical symptoms of schizophrenia: emotional shallowness, oddness, episodic rudimentary affective or paranoial disturbances. However, the level of adaptation and mental activity did not suffer significantly. The age-specific dynamics of such forms corresponded to general regularities in the development of schizophrenia: in the involutional period there was revivification of the above-mentioned symptoms of schizophrenia while in senescence only paranoial disorders and an increase of deficitary changes remained. The author discusses the question of justified diagnosis of latent schizophrenia in such cases.

Affective Symptoms↗
PubMed2021

High-impact rare genetic variants in severe schizophrenia.

Extreme phenotype sequencing has led to the identification of high-impact rare genetic variants for many complex disorders but has not been applied to studies of severe schizophrenia. We sequenced 112 individuals with severe, extremely treatment-resistant schizophrenia, 218 individuals with typical schizophrenia, and 4,929 controls. We compared the burden of rare, damaging missense and loss-of-function variants between severe, extremely treatment-resistant schizophrenia, typical schizophrenia, and controls across mutation intolerant genes. Individuals with severe, extremely treatment-resistant schizophrenia had a high burden of rare loss-of-function (odds ratio, 1.91; 95% CI, 1.39 to 2.63; P = 7.8 × 10-5) and damaging missense variants in intolerant genes (odds ratio, 2.90; 95% CI, 2.02 to 4.15; P = 3.2 × 10-9). A total of 48.2% of individuals with severe, extremely treatment-resistant schizophrenia carried at least one rare, damaging missense or loss-of-function variant in intolerant genes compared to 29.8% of typical schizophrenia individuals (odds ratio, 2.18; 95% CI, 1.33 to 3.60; P = 1.6 × 10-3) and 25.4% of controls (odds ratio, 2.74; 95% CI, 1.85 to 4.06; P = 2.9 × 10-7). Restricting to genes previously associated with schizophrenia risk strengthened the enrichment with 8.9% of individuals with severe, extremely treatment-resistant schizophrenia carrying a damaging missense or loss-of-function variant compared to 2.3% of typical schizophrenia (odds ratio, 5.48; 95% CI, 1.52 to 19.74; P = 0.02) and 1.6% of controls (odds ratio, 5.82; 95% CI, 3.00 to 11.28; P = 2.6 × 10-8). These results demonstrate the power of extreme phenotype case selection in psychiatric genetics and an approach to augment schizophrenia gene discovery efforts.

Aged↗
PubMed2026

Rethinking schizophrenia: insights from genomics and implications for research.

Recent genomic research, considered in the wider context of knowledge from outside genomics, provides significant conceptual insights into the aetiology and pathogenesis of schizophrenia. The evidence indicates that genetic risk is expressed across the lifespan, from foetal development through to adulthood, and involves multiple neuronal types and brain regions. Schizophrenia appears to be primarily a neuronal disorder, with synaptic dysfunction playing a central role in pathogenesis both during development and in mature adult brain function, alongside earlier non-synaptic neurodevelopmental mechanisms. Importantly, non-familial genetic and environmental factors substantially influence neurodevelopmental impairment, and this is often reflected in cognitive performance falling below familial expectations. Cognitive deficits and structural brain abnormalities are weakly correlated with familial genetic risk and are better understood as markers of neurodevelopmental vulnerability rather than causal mediators. Genomic findings also position schizophrenia within a neurodevelopmental continuum, spanning childhood-onset disorders to adult-onset psychiatric conditions, and suggest heterogeneity within schizophrenia, with some cases exhibiting stronger neurodevelopmental involvement. These findings challenge notions that schizophrenia can be ascribed to, or understood by studying, dysfunction in particular neuronal types, brain regions or circuits, or to defects at a particular stage of neurodevelopment. While schizophrenia appears to be predominantly a neuronal disorder, pathophysiology appears to be manifest widely across time and space, and in different neuronal types across the adult and foetal brain. Moreover, despite schizophrenia's high heritability, there is mounting evidence that non-familial genetic and environmental factors play important roles in the neurodevelopmental processes that impact on schizophrenia risk. Finally, variation in the impact of the neurodevelopmental factors appears to be key to understanding some of the heterogeneity within schizophrenia and the relationship between schizophrenia and other conditions. These observations have profound implications for future research, particularly in clarifying pathogenic mechanisms and refining diagnostic frameworks.

Humans↗
PubMed2025

Polygenic enrichment analysis in multi-omics levels identifies cell/tissue specific associations with schizophrenia based on single-cell RNA sequencing data.

OBJECTIVE: Understanding the specific cellular origin and tissue heterogeneity in schizophrenia is critically important for exploring the disease etiology. This study aims to investigate these aspects by performing multiple analyses based on omics data. METHOD: We performed single-cell disease relevance score (scDRS) algorithm to link brain single-cell RNA sequencing (scRNA-seq) with schizophrenia risk across multi-omics scales at single-cell resolution. This approach identified cell types with overexpression of schizophrenia-related genes implicated by multi-omics panels (ATAC-seq, RNA-seq, TWAS, and GWAS). Schizophrenia-related genes from these multi-omics panels were extracted and combined with scRNA-seq data to calculate scDRS. Subsequently, the cell-type vs. disease association and tissue heterogeneity were assessed using scDRS for each omics panel. RESULTS: We identified two novel cell subpopulations in the brain that differentially express SCUBE3 (59 cells, 7.0 %) and FN1 (21 cells, 2.5 %). At the individual cell level, schizophrenia-associated cell subpopulations included microglial cell associated with ATAC-seq panel (Passociation = 0.002, Pheterogeneity = 0.009) and deep layer neuron suggestively associated with GWAS panel (Passociation = 0.033, Pheterogeneity = 0.017). At the brain tissue level, microglial cell was significantly associated with cortical plate in ATAC-seq panel (Passociation = 0.002, Pheterogeneity = 0.011). Gene level analysis identified several genes associated with schizophrenia across multi-omics panels. CONCLUSIONS: Our study outlines the signature of cell subpopulations, brain regions, and disease risk genes in schizophrenia at single-cell resolution across multi-omics scales. These findings provide a reference for future precision medicine approaches targeting specific cell types and brain regions in schizophrenia.

Schizophrenia↗
PubMed2024

Schizophrenia is associated with altered DNA methylation variance.

Varying combinations of genetic and environmental risk factors are thought to underpin phenotypic heterogeneity between individuals in psychiatric conditions such as schizophrenia. While epigenome-wide association studies in schizophrenia have identified extensive alteration of mean DNA methylation levels, less is known about the location and impact of DNA methylation variance, which could contribute to phenotypic and treatment response heterogeneity. To explore this question, we conducted the largest meta-analysis of blood DNA methylation variance in schizophrenia to date, leveraging three cohorts comprising 1036 individuals with schizophrenia and 954 non-psychiatric controls. Surprisingly, only a small proportion (0.1%) of the 213 variably methylated positions (VMPs) associated with schizophrenia (Benjamini-Hochberg FDR&#x2009;<&#x2009;0.05) were shared with differentially methylated positions (DMPs; sites with mean changes between cases and controls). These blood-derived VMPs were found to be overrepresented in genes previously associated with schizophrenia and amongst brain-enriched genes, with evidence of concordant changes at VMPs in the cerebellum, hippocampus, prefrontal cortex, or striatum. Epigenetic covariance was also observed with respect to clinically significant metrics including age of onset, cognitive deficits, and symptom severity. We also uncovered a significant VMP in individuals with first-episode psychosis (n&#x2009;=&#x2009;644) from additional cohorts and a non-psychiatric comparison group (n&#x2009;=&#x2009;633). Collectively, these findings suggest schizophrenia is associated with significant changes in DNA methylation variance, which may contribute to individual-to-individual heterogeneity.

Humans↗
PubMed1979

Dopaminergic mechanisms and cognitive deficit in schizophrenia. A neurobiological model.

A hypothesis is briefly discussed proposing that schizophrenic symptoms are due to a breakdown in a mechanism by which conscious attention is limited and directed. It is shown that this mechanism can be modelled in terms of a simple nerve network in which every channel inhibits all the others. Failure of this inhibition would cause the defect hypothesised to occur in schizophrenia. It is shown that if dopamine is given a central role as transmitter in such a network then the various predictions about the biochemistry of schizophrenia that follow are not only consistent with the evidence for the 'dopamine theory' of schizophrenia, but also with much of the evidence held to be contrary to that theory. While not purporting to be an experimentally validated description of schizophrenia, this model goes beyond the single amine theories of schizophrenia and links dysfunctions in amine systems with specific behavioural control mechanisms. Given the current state of knowledge, such models can make only limited predictions about the biochemistry of schizophrenia. However, an attempt to link behavioural and biochemical systems in this way will be crucial for the development of viable animal models of schizophrenia.

Animals↗
PubMed2025

Dissecting the shared genetic architecture of schizophrenia with ventricular subregion volumes.

Schizophrenia is characterized by cerebral ventricular enlargement as an early and consistent structural anomaly. While genetic factors significantly influence both schizophrenia and cerebral ventricular enlargement, the shared genetic etiology between them requires further investigation. Using summary statistics from recent large genome-wide association studies on schizophrenia and 9 ventricular subregion volumes phenotypes. Gaussian causal mixture modeling was applied to characterize the genetic architecture and overlap between schizophrenia and ventricular subregion volumes phenotypes. Local genetic correlation was investigated with Local Analysis of Variant Association. The conjunctional false discovery rate framework was used to identify the specific shared genetic loci, annotated with FUMA. Gaussian causal mixture modeling estimated schizophrenia to be more polygenic more polygenic (9574 trait-influencing variants) than ventricular subregion volumes phenotypes (157-1267 trait-influencing variants). Conjunctional false discovery rate analysis identified 42 shared genetic loci, 17 loci were identified as novel for both schizophrenia and the ventricular subregion volumes phenotypes. Local Analysis of Variant Association revealed that 11 distinct loci demonstrated significant differences, among which 4 loci were situated in the Major Histocompatibility Complex region. Annotated genes in shared loci were enriched in molecular signaling pathways involved in inflammation and the brain structure. The shared loci between them were annotated and enriched in Major Histocompatibility Complex and inflammation-related pathways, highlighting new opportunities for future investigation.

Schizophrenia↗
PubMed1979

Should 'non-Feighner schizophrenia' be classified with affective disorder?

Narrow definitions of schizophrenia increase homogeneity at the expense of leaving unclassified many patients with shizophrenic symptoms. Family history and follow-up studies indicate that many such patients ought to be classified with those having affective disorders. This study determines morbid risks for affective disorder and schizophrenia in first degree relatives of patients with chart but not research diagnoses of schizophrenia. Comparisons with morbid risk figures for relatives of individuals satisfying research criteria for depression, mania or schizophrenia indicate that the 'non-Feighner schizophrenia' group is probably too heterogenous to be classified entirely as affective disorder or as schizophrenia.

Adolescent↗