| 1 | Schizophr. Res. 2015 Oct 168: 434-43 |
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| PMID | 26285829 |
| Title | CX3CR1 is dysregulated in blood and brain from schizophrenia patients. |
| Abstract | The molecular mechanisms underlying schizophrenia remain largely unknown. Although schizophrenia is a mental disorder, there is increasing evidence to indicate that inflammatory processes driven by diverse environmental factors play a significant role in its development. With gene expression studies having been conducted across a variety of sample types, e.g., blood and postmortem brain, it is possible to investigate convergent signatures that may reveal interactions between the immune and nervous systems in schizophrenia pathophysiology. We conducted two meta-analyses of schizophrenia microarray gene expression data (N=474) and non-psychiatric control (N=485) data from postmortem brain and blood. Then, we assessed whether significantly dysregulated genes in schizophrenia could be shared between blood and brain. To validate our findings, we selected a top gene candidate and analyzed its expression by RT-qPCR in a cohort of schizophrenia subjects stabilized by atypical antipsychotic monotherapy (N=29) and matched controls (N=31). Meta-analyses highlighted inflammation as the major biological process associated with schizophrenia and that the chemokine receptor CX3CR1 was significantly down-regulated in schizophrenia. This differential expression was also confirmed in our validation cohort. Given both the recent data demonstrating selective CX3CR1 expression in subsets of neuroimmune cells, as well as behavioral and neuropathological observations of CX3CR1 deficiency in mouse models, our results of reduced CX3CR1 expression adds further support for a role played by monocyte/microglia in the neurodevelopment of schizophrenia. |
| SCZ Keywords | schizophrenia |
| 2 | Neuroscience 2015 Aug 300: 554-65 |
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| PMID | 26037805 |
| Title | Theta frequency prefrontal-hippocampal driving relationship during free exploration in mice. |
| Abstract | Inter-connected brain areas coordinate to process information and synchronized neural activities engage in learning and memory processes. Recent electrophysiological studies in rodents have implicated hippocampal-prefrontal connectivity in anxiety, spatial learning and memory-related tasks. In human patients with schizophrenia and autism, robust reduced connectivity between the hippocampus (HPC) and prefrontal cortex (PFC) has been reported. However little is known about the directionality of these oscillations and their roles during active behaviors remain unclear. Here the directional information processing in mice was measured by Granger causality, a mathematical tool that has been used in neuroscience to quantify the oscillatory driving relationship between the ventral HPC (vHPC) and the PFC in two anxiety tests and between the dorsal HPC (dHPC) and the PFC in social interaction test. In the open field test, stronger vHPC driving to the PFC was found in the center compartment than in the wall area. In the light-dark box test, PFC to vHPC causality was higher than vHPC to PFC causality although no difference was found between the light and dark areas for the causality in both directions. In the social interaction test using CX3CR1 knockout mice which model for deficient microglia-dependent synaptic pruning, higher PFC driving to the dHPC was found than driving from the dHPC to the PFC in both knockout mice and wild-type mice. CX3CR1 knockout mice showed reduced baseline PFC driving to the dHPC compared to their wild-type littermates. PFC to dHPC causality could predict the actual time spent interacting with the social stimuli. The current findings indicate that directed oscillatory activities between the PFC and the HPC have task-dependent roles during exploration in the anxiety test and in the social interaction test. |
| SCZ Keywords | schizophrenia |
| 3 | J. Alzheimers Dis. 2016 Feb 51: 417-25 |
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| PMID | 26890750 |
| Title | Integrated Analysis of Alzheimer's Disease and Schizophrenia Dataset Revealed Different Expression Pattern in Learning and Memory. |
| Abstract | Alzheimer's disease (AD) and schizophrenia (SZ) are both accompanied by impaired learning and memory functions. This study aims to explore the expression profiles of learning or memory genes between AD and SZ. We downloaded 10 AD and 10 SZ datasets from GEO-NCBI for integrated analysis. These datasets were processed using RMA algorithm and a global renormalization for all studies. Then Empirical Bayes algorithm was used to find the differentially expressed genes between patients and controls. The results showed that most of the differentially expressed genes were related to AD whereas the gene expression profile was little affected in the SZ. Furthermore, in the aspects of the number of differentially expressed genes, the fold change and the brain region, there was a great difference in the expression of learning or memory related genes between AD and SZ. In AD, the CALB1, GABRA5, and TAC1 were significantly downregulated in whole brain, frontal lobe, temporal lobe, and hippocampus. However, in SZ, only two genes CRHBP and CX3CR1 were downregulated in hippocampus, and other brain regions were not affected. The effect of these genes on learning or memory impairment has been widely studied. It was suggested that these genes may play a crucial role in AD or SZ pathogenesis. The different gene expression patterns between AD and SZ on learning and memory functions in different brain regions revealed in our study may help to understand the different mechanism between two diseases. |
| SCZ Keywords | schizophrenia |