Project description:We conducted proteomic profiling of plasma, identifying both overlapping and unique differential proteins in adolescent patients diagnosed with major depressive disorder (MDD), bipolar disorder (BD), and schizophrenia (SZ). Our results showed that the protein signatures of adolescent psychiatric disorders differ significantly from those of adults. We propose potential targets for drug development aimed at the prevention or precision therapy of these psychiatric disorders. These findings enhance our understanding of the molecular etiology of adolescent psychiatric disorders. The specific biomolecular signatures of MDD, BD, and SZ could potentially serve as targets for the development of novel interventions aimed at prevention, early diagnosis, and treatment of these mental health conditions.
Project description:Schizophrenia and other psychiatric disorders are postulated to be developmental disorders resulting from synapse dysfunction. How susceptibility genes for major mental disorders could lead to synaptic deficits in humans is not well-understood. Here we generated induced pluripotent stem cells (iPSCs) from four members of a family in which a frame-shift mutation of Disrupted-in-schizophrenia-1 (DISC1) co-segregated with psychiatric disorders and further produced different isogenic iPSC lines via genetic editing. We showed that mutant DISC1 causes synaptic vesicle release deficits in iPSC-derived forebrain neurons. Mechanistically, mutant DISC1 dysregulates the expression of many genes related to synapses and psychiatric disorders and depletes wild-type DISC1 and the NCoR1 transcription co-repressor complex. Furthermore, mechanism-guided pharmacological inhibition of phosphodiesterases rescues synaptic defects in mutant neurons. Our study uncovers a novel gain-of-function mechanism through which the psychiatric disorder-relevant mutation affects synaptic functions via transcriptional dysregulation and provides insight into the molecular and synaptic etiopathology of psychiatric disorders. Two patient derived iPSC lines carrying heterozygous 4bp deletion in DISC1 gene and 1 related control were analyzed in biological triplicate
Project description:Schizophrenia and other psychiatric disorders are postulated to be developmental disorders resulting from synapse dysfunction. How susceptibility genes for major mental disorders could lead to synaptic deficits in humans is not well-understood. Here we generated induced pluripotent stem cells (iPSCs) from four members of a family in which a frame-shift mutation of Disrupted-in-schizophrenia-1 (DISC1) co-segregated with psychiatric disorders and further produced different isogenic iPSC lines via genetic editing. We showed that mutant DISC1 causes synaptic vesicle release deficits in iPSC-derived forebrain neurons. Mechanistically, mutant DISC1 dysregulates the expression of many genes related to synapses and psychiatric disorders and depletes wild-type DISC1 and the NCoR1 transcription co-repressor complex. Furthermore, mechanism-guided pharmacological inhibition of phosphodiesterases rescues synaptic defects in mutant neurons. Our study uncovers a novel gain-of-function mechanism through which the psychiatric disorder-relevant mutation affects synaptic functions via transcriptional dysregulation and provides insight into the molecular and synaptic etiopathology of psychiatric disorders.
Project description:Mental disorders have been shown to be associated with a number of general medical conditions (also referred to as somatic or physical conditions). The investigators aim to undertake a comprehensive study of comorbidity among those with treated mental disorders, by using high-quality Danish registers to provide age- and sex-specific pairwise estimates between the ten groups of mental disorders and nine groups of general medical conditions.
The investigators will examine the association between all 90 possible pairs of prior mental disorders and later GMC categories using the Danish national registers. Depending on whether individuals are diagnosed with a specific mental disorder, the investigators will estimate the risk of receiving a later diagnosis within a specific GMC category, between the start of follow-up (January 1, 2000) or at the earliest age at which a person might develop the mental disorder, whichever comes later. Follow-up will be terminated at onset of the GMC, death, emigration from Denmark, or December 31, 2016, whichever came first. Additionally for dyslipidemia, follow-up will be ended if a diagnosis of ischemic heart disease was received. A "wash-out" period will be employed in the five years before follow-up started (1995-1999), to identify and exclude prevalent cases from the analysis. Individuals with the GMC of interest before the observation period will be considered prevalent cases and excluded from the analyses (i.e. prevalent cases were "washed-out"). When estimating the risk of a specific GMC, the investigators will consider all individuals to be exposed or unexposed to the each mental disorder depending on whether a diagnosis is received before the end of follow-up. Persons will be considered unexposed to a mental disorder until the date of the first diagnosis, and exposed thereafter.
Project description:Susceptibility genes for Autism Spectrum Disorder (ASD), Fragile X Syndrome (FXS), monogenetic disorders with intellectual disabilities (ID) or schizophrenia (SCZ) converge on processes related to neuronal function and differentiation. Furthermore, ASD risk genes are enriched for FMRP (Fragile X Mental Retardation Protein) targets and for genes implicated in ID. In addition, a significant co-heritability was observed between ASD and SCZ. The genetic overlap between ASD, FXS, ID and SCZ together with the symptomatic differences gives rise to the question if pathomechanisms impair the same or different regulatory patterns activated during neuronal differentiation (ND). To test this idea, we performed transcriptome analysis of in-vitro differentiation of the neuroblastoma cell line model SH-SY5Y and identified genes that were differentially expressed, dynamically regulated, and coordinately expressed. The identified genetic modules activated during ND are enriched for genetic risk factors for these four disorders. Although risk genes for the disorders significantly overlap, we observed disorder specific enrichments: ASD or FXS implicated genes were likely to be positive regulators of ND whereas ID implicated genes were related to negative regulation. ASD and SCZ genes were specifically enriched among cholesterol and fatty acid associated modules. ID genes were overrepresented among cell cycle modules. In addition, we show that ASD genes are likely to be hub genes. We hypothesize that knowledge about genetic variants of an individual combined with network and pathway context of the related genes will allow differentiating between psychiatric disorders. 21 samples, consisting of 3 replicates harvested at 7 different time-points of RA+BDNF-induced neuronal differentiation