Postmortem brain study of development-dependently expressed genes in mental disorders focusing on onset age

2015 Fiscal Year Final Research Report

• Project/Area Number: 25860991
• Research Category: Grant-in-Aid for Young Scientists (B)
• Allocation Type: Multi-year Fund
• Research Field: Psychiatric science
• Research Institution: Tokyo Medical and Dental University
• Principal Investigator: Uezato Akihito 東京医科歯科大学, 医歯(薬)学総合研究科, 助教 (90547449)
• Project Period (FY): 2013-04-01 – 2016-03-31
• Keywords: 死後脳 / 遺伝子 / 精神疾患

Outline of Final Research Achievements

In mental diseases with post-adolescent onset, a dysfunction of neural circuits that mature during adolescence or alterations of the related molecules and genes are speculated. We found the expression of synapse-associated protein 97 (SAP97) increased only after a developmental critical period in response to NMDA receptor blocker administration, therefore, SAP97 gene was regarded as development-dependent risk gene of schizophrenia. The mRNA expression analysis of SAP97 new splicing variant in postmortem brains of schizophrenia revealed the reduced expression in early-onset schizophrenia, indicating its involvement in the disease development process.

Free Research Field

精神医学