The pharmacogenetics of antipsychotic treatment

Pharmacogenetics of Antipsychotic Treatment in Schizophrenia

Antipsychotics are the mainstay treatment for schizophrenia. There is large variability between individuals in their response to antipsychotics, both in efficacy and adverse effects of treatment. While the source of interindividual variability in antipsychotic response is not completely understood, genetics is a major contributing factor. The identification of pharmacogenetic markers that predict antipsychotic efficacy and adverse reactions is a growing area of research and holds the potential to replace the current trial-and-error approach to treatment selection in schizophrenia with a personalized medicine approach.In this chapter, we provide an overview of the current state of pharmacogenetics in schizophrenia treatment. The most promising pharmacogenetic findings are presented for both antipsychotic response and commonly studied adverse reactions. The application of pharmacogenetics to schizophrenia treatment is discussed, with an emphasis on the clinical utility of pharmacogenetic testing and directions for future research.

Putative role of pharmacogenetics to elucidate the mechanism of tardive dyskinesia in schizophrenia

Identifying biomarkers which can be used as a diagnostic tool is a major objective of pharmacogenetic studies. Most mental and many neurological disorders have a compiled multifaceted nature, which may be the reason why this endeavor has hitherto not been very successful. This is also true for tardive dyskinesia (TD), an involuntary movement complication of long-term treatment with antipsychotic drugs. The observed associations of specific gene variants with the prevalence and severity of a disorder can also be applied to try to elucidate the pathogenesis of the condition. In this paper, this strategy is used by combining pharmacogenetic knowledge with theories on the possible role of a dysfunction of specific cellular elements of neostriatal parts of the (dorsal) extrapyramidal circuits: various glutamatergic terminals, medium spiny neurons, striatal interneurons and ascending monoaminergic fibers. A peculiar finding is that genetic variants which would be expected to increase the neostriatal dopamine concentration are not associated with the prevalence and severity of TD. Moreover, modifying the sensitivity to glutamatergic long-term potentiation (and excitotoxicity) shows a relationship with levodopa-induced dyskinesia, but not with TD. Contrasting this, TD is associated with genetic variants that modify vulnerability to oxidative stress. Reducing the oxidative stress burden of medium spiny neurons may also be the mechanism behind the protective influence of 5-HT2 receptor antagonists. It is probably worthwhile to discriminate between neostriatal matrix and striosomal compartments when studying the mechanism of TD and between orofacial and limb-truncal components in epidemiological studies.

Treatment-Resistant Schizophrenia: Genetic and Neuroimaging Correlates

Schizophrenia is a severe neuropsychiatric disorder that affects approximately 0.5–1% of the population. Response to antipsychotic therapy is highly variable, and it is not currently possible to predict those patients who will or will not respond to antipsychotic medication. Furthermore, a high percentage of patients, approximately 30%, are classified as treatment-resistant (treatment-resistant schizophrenia; TRS). TRS is defined as a non-response to at least two trials of antipsychotic medication of adequate dose and duration. These patients are usually treated with clozapine, the only evidence-based pharmacotherapy for TRS. However, clozapine is associated with severe adverse events. For these reasons, there is an increasing interest to identify better targets for drug development of new compounds and to establish better biomarkers for existing medications. The ability of antipsychotics to improve psychotic symptoms is dependent on their antagonist and reverse agonist activities at different neuroreceptors, and some genetic association studies of TRS have focused on different pharmacodynamic factors. Some genetic studies have shown an association between antipsychotic response or TRS and neurodevelopment candidate genes, antipsychotic mechanisms of action (such as dopaminergic, serotonergic, GABAergic, and glutamatergic) or pharmacokinetic factors (i.e., differences in the cytochrome families). Moreover, there is a growing body of literature on the structural and functional neuroimaging research into TRS. Neuroimaging studies can help to uncover the underlying neurobiological reasons for such resistance and identify resistant patients earlier. Studies examining the neuropharmacological mechanisms of antipsychotics, including clozapine, can help to improve our knowledge of their action on the central nervous system, with further implications for the discovery of biomarkers and the development of new treatments. The identification of the underlying mechanisms of TRS is a major challenge for developing personalized medicine in the psychiatric field for schizophrenia treatment. The main goal of precision medicine is to use genetic and brain-imaging information to improve the safety, effectiveness, and health outcomes of patients via more efficiently targeted risk stratification, prevention, and tailored medication and treatment management approaches. The aim of this review is to summarize the state of art of pharmacogenetic, pharmacogenomic and neuroimaging studies in TRS.

Polymorphisms of serotonin neurotransmission and their effects on antipsychotic drug action

The receptor pharmacology of many antipsychotic drugs includes actions at various serotonin (5-hydroxytryptamine [5-HT]) receptors. The 5-HT neurotransmitter system is thought to be involved in many of the consequences of treatment with antipsychotic drugs, including both symptom response, primarily of negative and depressive symptoms, and adverse effects, notably extrapyramidal side effects and weight gain. There is substantial interindividual variability in these drug effects, to which genetic variability contributes. We review here the influence of functional polymorphisms in genes associated with 5-HT function, including the various processes of neurotransmitter synthesis, receptors, transporters and metabolism, on the clinical response to, and adverse effects of, antipsychotic drugs. The relatively young field of epigenetics also contributes to the variability of 5-HT-related genes in influencing drug response. Several of these findings inform our understanding of the mechanisms of antipsychotic drug action, and also provide the opportunity for the development of genetic testing for personalized medicine.

Pharmacogenetics of antipsychotic treatment in schizophrenia

Antipsychotics are the mainstay treatment for schizophrenia. There is large variability between individuals in their response to antipsychotics, both in efficacy and adverse effects of treatment. While the source of interindividual variability in antipsychotic response is not completely understood, genetics is a major contributing factor. The identification of pharmacogenetic markers that predict antipsychotic efficacy and adverse reactions is a growing area of research, and holds the potential to replace the current trial-and-error approach to treatment selection in schizophrenia with a personalized medicine approach.In this chapter, we provide an overview of the current state of pharmacogenetics in schizophrenia treatment. The most promising pharmacogenetic findings are presented for both antipsychotic response and commonly studied adverse reactions. The application of pharmacogenetics to schizophrenia treatment is discussed, with an emphasis on the clinical utility of pharmacogenetic testing and directions for future research.