1Brain Res. 2012 Aug 1470: 130-44
PMID22765916
TitleCadherins and neuropsychiatric disorders.
AbstractCadherins mediate cell-cell adhesion but are also involved in intracellular signaling pathways associated with neuropsychiatric disease. Most of the ?100 cadherins that are expressed in the brain exhibit characteristic spatiotemporal expression profiles. Cadherins have been shown to regulate neural tube regionalization, neuronal migration, gray matter differentiation, neural circuit formation, spine morphology, synapse formation and synaptic remodeling. The dysfunction of the cadherin-based adhesive system may alter functional connectivity and coherent information processing in the human brain in neuropsychiatric disease. Several neuropsychiatric disorders, such as epilepsy/mental retardation, autism, bipolar disease and schizophrenia, have been associated with cadherins, mostly by genome-wide association studies. For example, CDH15 and PCDH19 are associated with cognitive impairment; CDH5, CDH8, CDH9, CDH10, CDH13, CDH15, PCDH10, PCDH19 and PCDHb4 with autism; CDH7, CDH12, CDH18, PCDH12 and FAT with bipolar disease and schizophrenia; and CDH11, CDH12 and CDH13 with methamphetamine and alcohol dependency. To date, disease-causing mutations are established for PCDH19 in patients with epilepsy, cognitive impairment and/or autistic features. In conclusion, genes encoding members of the cadherin superfamily are of special interest in the pathogenesis of neuropsychiatric disease because cadherins play a pivotal role in the development of the neural circuitry as well as in mature synaptic function.
SCZ Keywordsschizophrenia
2BMC Med. Genet. 2014 -1 15: 2
PMID24387768
TitleGenome-wide association study of bipolar disorder in Canadian and UK populations corroborates disease loci including SYNE1 and CSMD1.
AbstractRecently, genome-wide association studies (GWAS) for cases versus controls using single nucleotide polymorphism microarray data have shown promising findings for complex neuropsychiatric disorders, including bipolar disorder (BD).
Here we describe a comprehensive genome-wide study of bipolar disorder (BD), cross-referencing analysis from a family-based study of 229 small families with association analysis from over 950 cases and 950 ethnicity-matched controls from the UK and Canada. Further, loci identified in these analyses were supported by pathways identified through pathway analysis on the samples.
Although no genome-wide significant markers were identified, the combined GWAS findings have pointed to several genes of interest that support GWAS findings for BD from other groups or consortia, such as at SYNE1 on 6q25, PPP2R2C on 4p16.1, ZNF659 on 3p24.3, CNTNAP5 (2q14.3), and CDH13 (16q23.3). This apparent corroboration across multiple sites gives much confidence to the likelihood of genetic involvement in BD at these loci. In particular, our two-stage strategy found association in both our combined case/control analysis and the family-based analysis on 1q21.2 (closest gene: sphingosine-1-phosphate receptor 1 gene, S1PR1) and on 1q24.1 near the gene TMCO1, and at CSMD1 on 8p23.2, supporting several previous GWAS reports for BD and for schizophrenia. Pathway analysis suggests association of pathways involved in calcium signalling, neuropathic pain signalling, CREB signalling in neurons, glutamate receptor signalling and axonal guidance signalling.
The findings presented here show support for a number of genes previously implicated genes in the etiology of BD, including CSMD1 and SYNE1, as well as evidence for previously unreported genes such as the brain-expressed genes ADCY2, NCALD, WDR60, SCN7A and SPAG16.
SCZ Keywordsschizophrenia
3Mol. Psychiatry 2014 Mar 19: 325-33
PMID23358160
TitleGenome-wide study of association and interaction with maternal cytomegalovirus infection suggests new schizophrenia loci.
AbstractGenetic and environmental components as well as their interaction contribute to the risk of schizophrenia, making it highly relevant to include environmental factors in genetic studies of schizophrenia. This study comprises genome-wide association (GWA) and follow-up analyses of all individuals born in Denmark since 1981 and diagnosed with schizophrenia as well as controls from the same birth cohort. Furthermore, we present the first genome-wide interaction survey of single nucleotide polymorphisms (SNPs) and maternal cytomegalovirus (CMV) infection. The GWA analysis included 888 cases and 882 controls, and the follow-up investigation of the top GWA results was performed in independent Danish (1396 cases and 1803 controls) and German-Dutch (1169 cases, 3714 controls) samples. The SNPs most strongly associated in the single-marker analysis of the combined Danish samples were rs4757144 in ARNTL (P=3.78 × 10(-6)) and rs8057927 in CDH13 (P=1.39 × 10(-5)). Both genes have previously been linked to schizophrenia or other psychiatric disorders. The strongest associated SNP in the combined analysis, including Danish and German-Dutch samples, was rs12922317 in RUNDC2A (P=9.04 × 10(-7)). A region-based analysis summarizing independent signals in segments of 100?kb identified a new region-based genome-wide significant locus overlapping the gene ZEB1 (P=7.0 × 10(-7)). This signal was replicated in the follow-up analysis (P=2.3 × 10(-2)). Significant interaction with maternal CMV infection was found for rs7902091 (P(SNP × CMV)=7.3 × 10(-7)) in CTNNA3, a gene not previously implicated in schizophrenia, stressing the importance of including environmental factors in genetic studies.
SCZ Keywordsschizophrenia
4Adv Gerontol 2015 -1 28: 228-47
PMID26856084
TitleGENETICS OF HUMAN AGE RELATED DISORDERS.
AbstractAging is an inevitable biological phenomenon. The incidence of age related disorders (ARDs) such as cardiovascular diseases, cancer, arthritis, dementia, osteoporosis, diabetes, neurodegenerative diseases increase rapidly with aging. ARDs are becoming a key social and economic trouble for the world's elderly population (above 60 years), which is expected to reach 2 billion by 2050. Advancement in understanding of genetic associations, particularly through genome wide association studies (GWAS), has revealed a substantial contribution of genes to human aging and ARDs. In this review, we have focused on the recent understanding of the extent to which genetic predisposition may influence the aging process. Further analysis of the genetic association studies through pathway analysis several genes associated with multiple ARDs have been highlighted such as apolipoprotein E (APOE), brain-derived neurotrophic factor (BDNF), cadherin 13 (CDH13), CDK5 regulatory subunit associated protein 1 (CDKAL-1), methylenetetrahydrofolate reductase (MTHFR), disrupted in schizophrenia 1 (DISC1), nitric oxide synthase 3 (NOS3), paraoxonase 1 (PON1), indicating that these genes could play a pivotal role in ARD causation. These genes were found to be significantly enriched in Jak-STAT signalling pathway, asthma and allograft rejection. Further, interleukin-6 (IL-6), insulin (INS), vascular endothelial growth factor A (VEGFA), estrogen receptor1 (ESR1), transforming growth factor, beta 1(TGFB1) and calmodulin 1 (CALM1) were found to be highly interconnected in network analysis. We believe that extensive research on the presence of common genetic variants among various ARDs may facilitate scientists to understand the biology behind ARDs causation.
SCZ Keywordsschizophrenia
5Mol. Psychiatry 2015 Dec -1: -1
PMID26666204
TitlePolygenic associations of neurodevelopmental genes in suicide attempt.
AbstractThe risk for suicidal behavior (SB) is elevated in schizophrenia (SCZ), bipolar disorder (BPD) and major depressive disorder (MDD), but also occurs in subjects without psychiatric diagnoses. Genome-wide association studies (GWAS) on SB may help to understand this risk, but have been hampered by low power due to limited sample sizes, weakly ascertained SB or a reliance on single-nucleotide protein (SNP)-by-SNP analyses. Here, we tried to mitigate such issues with polygenic risk score (PRS) association tests combined with hypothesis-driven strategies using a family-based sample of 660 trios with a well-ascertained suicide attempt (SA) outcome in the offspring (Genetic Investigation of Suicide and SA, GISS). Two complementary sources of PRS information were used. First, a PRS that was discovered and validated in the GISS SA revealed the polygenic association of SNPs in 750 neurodevelopmental genes, which was driven by the SA phenotype, rather than the major psychiatric diagnoses. Second, a PRS based on three different genome-wide association studies (on SCZ, BPD or MDD) from the Psychiatric Genomics Consortium (PGC) showed an association of the PGC-SCZ PRS in the SA subjects with and without major psychiatric diagnoses. We characterized the PGC-SCZ overlap in the SA subjects without diagnoses. The extended major histocompatibility complex region did not contribute to the overlap, but we delineated the genic overlap to neurodevelopmental genes that partially overlapped with those identified by the GISS PRS. Among the 590 SA polygenes implicated here, there were several developmentally important functions (cell adhesion/migration, small GTPase and receptor tyrosine kinase signaling), and 16 of the SA polygenes have previously been studied in SB (BDNF, CDH10, CDH12, CDH13, CDH9, CREB1, DLK1, DLK2, EFEMP1, FOXN3, IL2, LSAMP, NCAM1, nerve growth factor (NGF), NTRK2 and TBC1D1). These novel genome-wide insights, supported by two lines of evidence, suggested the importance of a polygenic neurodevelopmental etiology in SB, even in the absence of major psychiatric diagnoses.Molecular Psychiatry advance online publication, 15 December 2015; doi:10.1038/mp.2015.187.
SCZ Keywordsschizophrenia
6Neuropsychiatr Dis Treat 2015 -1 11: 1381-93
PMID26082635
TitleAssociation analysis of the Cadherin13 gene with schizophrenia in the Japanese population.
AbstractCadherin13 (CDH13) is a glycosylphosphatidylinositol-anchored cell adhesion molecule that plays a crucial role in morphogenesis and the maintenance of neuronal circuitry. CDH13 has been implicated in the susceptibility to a variety of psychiatric diseases. A recent genome-wide association study using Danish samples showed, for the first time, the involvement of a single nucleotide polymorphism (SNP) of CDH13 (intronic SNP rs8057927) in schizophrenia. Here, we investigated the association between other SNPs of CDH13 and schizophrenia and tried to replicate the association for the SNP of rs8057927, in the Japanese population.
Using TaqMan(®) SNP genotyping assays, five tag SNPs (rs12925602, rs7193788, rs736719, rs6565051, and rs7204454) in the promoter region of CDH13 were examined for their association with schizophrenia in two independent samples. The first sample comprised 665 patients and 760 controls, and the second sample comprised 677 patients and 667 controls. One tag SNP for rs8057927 was also examined for the association with schizophrenia in the first sample set.
A GACAG haplotype of the five SNPs in the promoter region of CDH13 was significantly associated with schizophrenia in the first sample set (P=0.016 and corrected P=0.098). A combined analysis of the GACAG haplotype with the second sample set enhanced the significance (P=0.0026 and corrected P=0.021). We found no association between rs8057927 and schizophrenia in the first sample set.
Our results suggest that CDH13 may contribute to the genetic risk of schizophrenia. Further replication on the association of CDH13 with schizophrenia and functional studies are required to confirm the current findings.
SCZ Keywordsschizophrenia