Research has defined the patterns of gene expression of five neuropsychiatric disorders: autism, schizophrenia, bipolar disorder, depression and alcoholism. Surviving similarities and differences have emerged: bipolar disorder is closer to schizophrenia than depression, while depression and alcoholism have very specific molecular profiles, different from other disorders.
What are the biological bases that predispose to the development of serious neuropsychiatric disorders? The research gave some partial answers, for example on specific gene variants that are related to these disorders.
A new study published in "Science" by a group of researchers at the University of California in Los Angeles focused not on the genome, the set of instructions written in DNA for the synthesis of proteins, but on the transcriptome, ie the whole of the messenger RNAs, which have the task of "reading" these instructions.
The messenger RNA molecules give a fairly precise idea of the patterns of DNA expression in the whole organism or in individual organs, and can therefore define a "molecular identikit" also of subjects affected by various neuropsychiatric disorders. The idea is that alterations or mutations in the transcriptome can contribute significantly to the onset of disease.
The authors analyzed 700 samples of brain tissue collected post-mortem from subjects with autism, schizophrenia, bipolar disorder, depression and alcoholism, compared with 293 samples of healthy subjects. The results of the comparison were largely surprising: gene transcription schemes have significant overlaps between disorders with different manifestations, while they show differences between similar disorders.
Depression and bipolar disorder, for example, are both considered mood disorders, and therefore one would expect a neurobiological correlation between them, but bipolar disorder has a gene expression of the tissues of the cerebral cortex similar to that of schizophrenia.
Depression and alcoholism, on the other hand, are characterized from very specific molecular mutations, different from each other and that are not observed in other disorders. This is an unexpected result, because previous twin studies had shown similar genetic risk factors for major depression and alcoholism.
Other important results concern the molecular basis of autism. Many genes in the cerebral cortex are active both in schizophrenia and in autism, but to a much greater extent in autism. This suggests that gene overexpression could play an important role in this disorder.
In contrast, some genes related to neuronal signal transmission were silenced in autism, schizophrenia and bipolar disorder, suggesting that a communication deficit between brain cells could be one of the crucial factors for the origin of these three conditions.
"These results provide a molecular signature for psychiatric disorders: it is a huge step forward in knowledge," commented Daniel Geschwind, senior author of the study. "The biggest challenge now is to understand how they occur".
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As a person who had severe bipolar disorder, I believe that a positive attitude and healthy mindset play a bigger role in determining a person’s mental state, genetics is only a small factor in all of this.... don’t let genes change who you really are!
Living example here on that statement. Be well
Yes, the genome gives basically the set to define an individual but the transcriptome and the epigenome can be modified and consequently change the individual during his life. This is why this study is important, nobody is genetically doomed to be alcoholic.
And yes, this is also why have a good mental state may affect genes expression (transcriptome and epigenome).
Super informative thanks, i got some good points from this. Alot is over my head a bit, may mark for a read later thanks be well
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This is really interesting and a great read! Can't wait to actually look at the paper... I think once they find a good cause for Autism we can finally start doing something to look at treating it!
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@enginewitty's banners are awesome, hey
I like yours much, golden color 👍
Greetings from #thealliance family member 😉
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