Genome-wide association identifies a common variant in the reelin gene that increases the risk of schizophrenia only in women

Shifman, Sagiv, Johannesson, Martina, Bronstein, Michal, Chen, Sam X., Collier, David A., Craddock, Nicholas John ORCID: https://orcid.org/0000-0003-2171-0610, Kendler, Kenneth S., Li, Tao, O'Donovan, Michael Conlon ORCID: https://orcid.org/0000-0001-7073-2379, O'Neill, F. Anthony, Owen, Michael John ORCID: https://orcid.org/0000-0003-4798-0862, Walsh, Dermot, Weinberger, Daniel R., Sun, Cuie, Flint, Jonathan and Darvasi, Ariel 2008. Genome-wide association identifies a common variant in the reelin gene that increases the risk of schizophrenia only in women. PLOS Genetics 4 (2) , e28. 10.1371/journal.pgen.0040028

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Abstract

Schizophrenia is a complex mental disease, which includes symptoms of delusions, hallucinations, disorganized speech, aberrant behavior, lack of emotional expression, diminished motivation, and social withdrawal. The cause of schizophrenia is unknown, but there is extensive evidence that genetics play a significant role in its aetiology. We studied the genetic basis of schizophrenia by analyzing around 500,000 genetic variants distributed across the whole human genome in DNA from schizophrenic patients and controls. We analyzed separately the DNA from men and women, and identified a genetic variant that increases the risk of developing schizophrenia in women only. The genetic variant is estimated to increase the risk of schizophrenia for women carrying the risk variant by 1.4-fold. The genetic variant is in a gene called reelin, which is known to play a part in brain development. However, it is still unclear how this genetic variant predisposes to schizophrenia nor why it is specific to women only.

Item Type:	Article
Date Type:	Publication
Status:	Published
Schools:	Medicine MRC Centre for Neuropsychiatric Genetics and Genomics (CNGG) Neuroscience and Mental Health Research Institute (NMHRI)
Subjects:	Q Science > QH Natural history > QH426 Genetics R Medicine > R Medicine (General) R Medicine > RC Internal medicine > RC0321 Neuroscience. Biological psychiatry. Neuropsychiatry
Publisher:	Public Library of Science
ISSN:	1553-7390
Date of First Compliant Deposit:	30 March 2016
Last Modified:	16 May 2023 23:51
URI:	https://orca.cardiff.ac.uk/id/eprint/28695

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