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Itai T, Jia P, Dai Y, Chen J, Chen X, Zhao Z. De novo mutations disturb early brain development more frequently than common variants in schizophrenia. Am J Med Genet B Neuropsychiatr Genet 2023; 192:62-70. [PMID: 36863698 PMCID: PMC11270591 DOI: 10.1002/ajmg.b.32932] [Citation(s) in RCA: 0] [Impact Index Per Article: 0] [Reference Citation Analysis] [Abstract] [Key Words] [MESH Headings] [Grants] [Track Full Text] [Journal Information] [Submit a Manuscript] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Received: 07/13/2022] [Revised: 12/08/2022] [Accepted: 01/29/2023] [Indexed: 03/04/2023]
Abstract
Investigating functional, temporal, and cell-type expression features of mutations is important for understanding a complex disease. Here, we collected and analyzed common variants and de novo mutations (DNMs) in schizophrenia (SCZ). We collected 2,636 missense and loss-of-function (LoF) DNMs in 2,263 genes across 3,477 SCZ patients (SCZ-DNMs). We curated three gene lists: (a) SCZ-neuroGenes (159 genes), which are intolerant to LoF and missense DNMs and are neurologically important, (b) SCZ-moduleGenes (52 genes), which were derived from network analyses of SCZ-DNMs, and (c) SCZ-commonGenes (120 genes) from a recent GWAS as reference. To compare temporal gene expression, we used the BrainSpan dataset. We defined a fetal effect score (FES) to quantify the involvement of each gene in prenatal brain development. We further employed the specificity indexes (SIs) to evaluate cell-type expression specificity from single-cell expression data in cerebral cortices of humans and mice. Compared with SCZ-commonGenes, SCZ-neuroGenes and SCZ-moduleGenes were highly expressed in the prenatal stage, had higher FESs, and had higher SIs in fetal replicating cells and undifferentiated cell types. Our results suggested that gene expression patterns in specific cell types in early fetal stages might have impacts on the risk of SCZ during adulthood.
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Affiliation(s)
- Toshiyuki Itai
- Center for Precision Health, School of Biomedical Informatics, The University of Texas Health Science Center at Houston, Houston, Texas, USA
| | - Peilin Jia
- Center for Precision Health, School of Biomedical Informatics, The University of Texas Health Science Center at Houston, Houston, Texas, USA
| | - Yulin Dai
- Center for Precision Health, School of Biomedical Informatics, The University of Texas Health Science Center at Houston, Houston, Texas, USA
| | - Jingchun Chen
- Nevada Institute of Personalized Medicine, University of Nevada Las Vegas, Las Vegas, Nevada, USA
| | - Xiangning Chen
- Center for Precision Health, School of Biomedical Informatics, The University of Texas Health Science Center at Houston, Houston, Texas, USA
| | - Zhongming Zhao
- Center for Precision Health, School of Biomedical Informatics, The University of Texas Health Science Center at Houston, Houston, Texas, USA
- Human Genetics Center, School of Public Health, The University of Texas Health Science Center at Houston, Houston, Texas, USA
- Faillace Department of Psychiatry and Behavioral Sciences, McGovern Medical School, The University of Texas Health Science Center at Houston, Houston, Texas, USA
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Pergola G, Penzel N, Sportelli L, Bertolino A. Lessons Learned From Parsing Genetic Risk for Schizophrenia Into Biological Pathways. Biol Psychiatry 2022:S0006-3223(22)01701-2. [PMID: 36740470 DOI: 10.1016/j.biopsych.2022.10.009] [Citation(s) in RCA: 0] [Impact Index Per Article: 0] [Reference Citation Analysis] [Abstract] [Key Words] [Track Full Text] [Journal Information] [Submit a Manuscript] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Received: 04/16/2022] [Revised: 09/10/2022] [Accepted: 10/06/2022] [Indexed: 02/07/2023]
Abstract
The clinically heterogeneous presentation of schizophrenia is compounded by the heterogeneity of risk factors and neurobiological correlates of the disorder. Genome-wide association studies in schizophrenia have uncovered a remarkably high number of genetic variants, but the biological pathways they impact upon remain largely unidentified. Among the diverse methodological approaches employed to provide a more granular understanding of genetic risk for schizophrenia, the use of biological labels, such as gene ontologies, regulome approaches, and gene coexpression have all provided novel perspectives into how genetic risk translates into the neurobiology of schizophrenia. Here, we review the salient aspects of parsing polygenic risk for schizophrenia into biological pathways. We argue that parsed scores, compared to standard polygenic risk scores, may afford a more biologically plausible and accurate physiological modeling of the different dimensions involved in translating genetic risk into brain mechanisms, including multiple brain regions, cell types, and maturation stages. We discuss caveats, opportunities, and pitfalls inherent in the parsed risk approach.
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Affiliation(s)
- Giulio Pergola
- Department of Translational Biomedicine and Neuroscience, University of Bari Aldo Moro, Bari, Italy.
| | - Nora Penzel
- Department of Translational Biomedicine and Neuroscience, University of Bari Aldo Moro, Bari, Italy
| | - Leonardo Sportelli
- Department of Translational Biomedicine and Neuroscience, University of Bari Aldo Moro, Bari, Italy
| | - Alessandro Bertolino
- Department of Translational Biomedicine and Neuroscience, University of Bari Aldo Moro, Bari, Italy
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Jia P, Hu R, Yan F, Dai Y, Zhao Z. scGWAS: landscape of trait-cell type associations by integrating single-cell transcriptomics-wide and genome-wide association studies. Genome Biol 2022; 23:220. [PMID: 36253801 PMCID: PMC9575201 DOI: 10.1186/s13059-022-02785-w] [Citation(s) in RCA: 9] [Impact Index Per Article: 4.5] [Reference Citation Analysis] [Abstract] [Key Words] [MESH Headings] [Grants] [Track Full Text] [Download PDF] [Figures] [Journal Information] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Received: 02/23/2022] [Accepted: 10/05/2022] [Indexed: 02/02/2023] Open
Abstract
BACKGROUND The rapid accumulation of single-cell RNA sequencing (scRNA-seq) data presents unique opportunities to decode the genetically mediated cell-type specificity in complex diseases. Here, we develop a new method, scGWAS, which effectively leverages scRNA-seq data to achieve two goals: (1) to infer the cell types in which the disease-associated genes manifest and (2) to construct cellular modules which imply disease-specific activation of different processes. RESULTS scGWAS only utilizes the average gene expression for each cell type followed by virtual search processes to construct the null distributions of module scores, making it scalable to large scRNA-seq datasets. We demonstrated scGWAS in 40 genome-wide association studies (GWAS) datasets (average sample size N ≈ 154,000) using 18 scRNA-seq datasets from nine major human/mouse tissues (totaling 1.08 million cells) and identified 2533 trait and cell-type associations, each with significant modules for further investigation. The module genes were validated using disease or clinically annotated references from ClinVar, OMIM, and pLI variants. CONCLUSIONS We showed that the trait-cell type associations identified by scGWAS, while generally constrained to trait-tissue associations, could recapitulate many well-studied relationships and also reveal novel relationships, providing insights into the unsolved trait-tissue associations. Moreover, in each specific cell type, the associations with different traits were often mediated by different sets of risk genes, implying disease-specific activation of driving processes. In summary, scGWAS is a powerful tool for exploring the genetic basis of complex diseases at the cell type level using single-cell expression data.
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Affiliation(s)
- Peilin Jia
- Center for Precision Health, School of Biomedical Informatics, The University of Texas Health Science Center at Houston, Houston, TX 77030 USA
| | - Ruifeng Hu
- Center for Precision Health, School of Biomedical Informatics, The University of Texas Health Science Center at Houston, Houston, TX 77030 USA
| | - Fangfang Yan
- Center for Precision Health, School of Biomedical Informatics, The University of Texas Health Science Center at Houston, Houston, TX 77030 USA
| | - Yulin Dai
- Center for Precision Health, School of Biomedical Informatics, The University of Texas Health Science Center at Houston, Houston, TX 77030 USA
| | - Zhongming Zhao
- Center for Precision Health, School of Biomedical Informatics, The University of Texas Health Science Center at Houston, Houston, TX 77030 USA
- Human Genetics Center, School of Public Health, The University of Texas Health Science Center at Houston, Houston, TX 77030 USA
- MD Anderson Cancer Center UTHealth Graduate School of Biomedical Sciences, Houston, TX 77030 USA
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Liu L, Zhang Y, Niu G, Li Q, Li Z, Zhu T, Feng C, Liu X, Zhang Y, Xu T, Chen R, Teng X, Zhang R, Zou D, Ma L, Zhang Z. BrainBase: a curated knowledgebase for brain diseases. Nucleic Acids Res 2022; 50:D1131-D1138. [PMID: 34718720 PMCID: PMC8728122 DOI: 10.1093/nar/gkab987] [Citation(s) in RCA: 1] [Impact Index Per Article: 0.5] [Reference Citation Analysis] [Abstract] [MESH Headings] [Grants] [Track Full Text] [Download PDF] [Figures] [Journal Information] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Received: 08/15/2021] [Revised: 10/01/2021] [Accepted: 10/07/2021] [Indexed: 12/23/2022] Open
Abstract
Brain is the central organ of the nervous system and any brain disease can seriously affect human health. Here we present BrainBase (https://ngdc.cncb.ac.cn/brainbase), a curated knowledgebase for brain diseases that aims to provide a whole picture of brain diseases and associated genes. Specifically, based on manual curation of 2768 published articles along with information retrieval from several public databases, BrainBase features comprehensive collection of 7175 disease-gene associations spanning a total of 123 brain diseases and linking with 5662 genes, 16 591 drug-target interactions covering 2118 drugs/chemicals and 623 genes, and five types of specific genes in light of expression specificity in brain tissue/regions/cerebrospinal fluid/cells. In addition, considering the severity of glioma among brain tumors, the current version of BrainBase incorporates 21 multi-omics datasets, presents molecular profiles across various samples/conditions and identifies four groups of glioma featured genes with potential clinical significance. Collectively, BrainBase integrates not only valuable curated disease-gene associations and drug-target interactions but also molecular profiles through multi-omics data analysis, accordingly bearing great promise to serve as a valuable knowledgebase for brain diseases.
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Affiliation(s)
- Lin Liu
- National Genomics Data Center & CAS Key Laboratory of Genome Sciences and Information, Beijing Institute of Genomics, Chinese Academy of Sciences, Beijing 100101, China
- China National Center for Bioinformation, Beijing 100101, China
| | - Yang Zhang
- National Genomics Data Center & CAS Key Laboratory of Genome Sciences and Information, Beijing Institute of Genomics, Chinese Academy of Sciences, Beijing 100101, China
- China National Center for Bioinformation, Beijing 100101, China
- University of Chinese Academy of Sciences, Beijing 100049, China
| | - Guangyi Niu
- National Genomics Data Center & CAS Key Laboratory of Genome Sciences and Information, Beijing Institute of Genomics, Chinese Academy of Sciences, Beijing 100101, China
- China National Center for Bioinformation, Beijing 100101, China
- University of Chinese Academy of Sciences, Beijing 100049, China
| | - Qianpeng Li
- National Genomics Data Center & CAS Key Laboratory of Genome Sciences and Information, Beijing Institute of Genomics, Chinese Academy of Sciences, Beijing 100101, China
- China National Center for Bioinformation, Beijing 100101, China
- University of Chinese Academy of Sciences, Beijing 100049, China
| | - Zhao Li
- National Genomics Data Center & CAS Key Laboratory of Genome Sciences and Information, Beijing Institute of Genomics, Chinese Academy of Sciences, Beijing 100101, China
- China National Center for Bioinformation, Beijing 100101, China
- University of Chinese Academy of Sciences, Beijing 100049, China
| | - Tongtong Zhu
- National Genomics Data Center & CAS Key Laboratory of Genome Sciences and Information, Beijing Institute of Genomics, Chinese Academy of Sciences, Beijing 100101, China
- China National Center for Bioinformation, Beijing 100101, China
- University of Chinese Academy of Sciences, Beijing 100049, China
| | - Changrui Feng
- National Genomics Data Center & CAS Key Laboratory of Genome Sciences and Information, Beijing Institute of Genomics, Chinese Academy of Sciences, Beijing 100101, China
- China National Center for Bioinformation, Beijing 100101, China
- University of Chinese Academy of Sciences, Beijing 100049, China
| | - Xiaonan Liu
- National Genomics Data Center & CAS Key Laboratory of Genome Sciences and Information, Beijing Institute of Genomics, Chinese Academy of Sciences, Beijing 100101, China
- China National Center for Bioinformation, Beijing 100101, China
- University of Chinese Academy of Sciences, Beijing 100049, China
| | - Yuansheng Zhang
- National Genomics Data Center & CAS Key Laboratory of Genome Sciences and Information, Beijing Institute of Genomics, Chinese Academy of Sciences, Beijing 100101, China
- China National Center for Bioinformation, Beijing 100101, China
- University of Chinese Academy of Sciences, Beijing 100049, China
| | - Tianyi Xu
- National Genomics Data Center & CAS Key Laboratory of Genome Sciences and Information, Beijing Institute of Genomics, Chinese Academy of Sciences, Beijing 100101, China
- China National Center for Bioinformation, Beijing 100101, China
| | - Ruru Chen
- National Genomics Data Center & CAS Key Laboratory of Genome Sciences and Information, Beijing Institute of Genomics, Chinese Academy of Sciences, Beijing 100101, China
- China National Center for Bioinformation, Beijing 100101, China
- University of Chinese Academy of Sciences, Beijing 100049, China
| | - Xufei Teng
- National Genomics Data Center & CAS Key Laboratory of Genome Sciences and Information, Beijing Institute of Genomics, Chinese Academy of Sciences, Beijing 100101, China
- China National Center for Bioinformation, Beijing 100101, China
- University of Chinese Academy of Sciences, Beijing 100049, China
| | - Rongqin Zhang
- National Genomics Data Center & CAS Key Laboratory of Genome Sciences and Information, Beijing Institute of Genomics, Chinese Academy of Sciences, Beijing 100101, China
- China National Center for Bioinformation, Beijing 100101, China
- University of Chinese Academy of Sciences, Beijing 100049, China
| | - Dong Zou
- National Genomics Data Center & CAS Key Laboratory of Genome Sciences and Information, Beijing Institute of Genomics, Chinese Academy of Sciences, Beijing 100101, China
- China National Center for Bioinformation, Beijing 100101, China
| | - Lina Ma
- National Genomics Data Center & CAS Key Laboratory of Genome Sciences and Information, Beijing Institute of Genomics, Chinese Academy of Sciences, Beijing 100101, China
- China National Center for Bioinformation, Beijing 100101, China
- University of Chinese Academy of Sciences, Beijing 100049, China
| | - Zhang Zhang
- National Genomics Data Center & CAS Key Laboratory of Genome Sciences and Information, Beijing Institute of Genomics, Chinese Academy of Sciences, Beijing 100101, China
- China National Center for Bioinformation, Beijing 100101, China
- University of Chinese Academy of Sciences, Beijing 100049, China
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Schor NF, Bianchi DW. Neurodevelopmental Clues to Neurodegeneration. Pediatr Neurol 2021; 123:67-76. [PMID: 34399111 PMCID: PMC10040214 DOI: 10.1016/j.pediatrneurol.2021.07.012] [Citation(s) in RCA: 3] [Impact Index Per Article: 1.0] [Reference Citation Analysis] [Abstract] [Key Words] [Track Full Text] [Journal Information] [Submit a Manuscript] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Received: 06/05/2021] [Revised: 06/19/2021] [Accepted: 07/21/2021] [Indexed: 12/17/2022]
Abstract
Neurodegenerative disorders are characterized by neuronal loss, usually in late life. But recently, abnormalities of proteins implicated in neurodegenerative disorders have been identified in disorders of childhood, raising the possibility that clues to susceptibility to and prevention of neurodegenerative disorders may be identifiable before symptoms of disease arise. This review leverages these new and evolving findings to test our hypothesis, first proposed in 2010, that proteins implicated in neurodegenerative disorders play important roles in brain development by examining evidence in the peer-reviewed literature published in the past five years for the relevance of these proteins in normal and disease-associated brain development.
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Affiliation(s)
- Nina F Schor
- National Institute of Neurological Disorders and Stroke, National Institutes of Health, Bethesda, Maryland.
| | - Diana W Bianchi
- Eunice Kennedy Shriver National Institute of Child Health and Human Development, National Institutes of Health, Bethesda, Maryland
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