VCU Expert Contributes to Largest Genetic Study of Psychiatric Illness

By Sathya Achia Abraham

Common genetic risk factors may play a part in influencing a person’s susceptibility to five major psychiatric disorders, including autism, attention deficit-hyperactivity disorder (ADHD), bipolar disorder, major depressive disorder and schizophrenia, according to new findings this week published Online First in The Lancet.

The new study is the largest genetic study of psychiatric illness to date and was conducted by the Cross-Disorder Group of the Psychiatric Genomics Consortium.

The findings advance the understanding of psychiatric illness on the molecular level, and could be used to develop potential target therapies directed at specific molecular pathways.

Since 2007, the Cross-Disorder Group of the Psychiatric Genomics Consortium has reviewed scientific literature of genome-wide association studies, or GWAS, on psychiatric disorders. To date, GWAS data from more than 19 countries has been gathered by the consortium.

Researchers from Virginia Commonwealth University, led by Kenneth S. Kendler, M.D., professor of psychiatry, and human and molecular genetics in the VCU School of Medicine, contributed to this study.

The consortium reported that specific single nucleotide polymorphisms, or SNPs, are associated with a range of psychiatric disorders that can occur during childhood or adulthood.

In total, there were four risk loci identified that have overlapping links with all five diseases. These were identified as regions on chromosomes 3p21 and 10q24, and SNPs in two genes that make components of channels that regulate the flow of calcium in brain cells. Through a molecular pathway analysis, they also found that calcium channel activity could play a key role in the development of all five disorders.

“This represents the first fruits of a major collaborative effort in psychiatric genetics. We are beginning to see patterns in the relationship between genetic risk variants that predispose to the major psychiatric disorders,” said Kendler, director of the Virginia Institute for Psychiatric and Behavioral Genetics at VCU, and third author of the study.

“Eventually these efforts may lead us to an understanding of biological pathways that underlie disease risk and that open up new and perhaps unimagined therapeutic possibilities,” he said.

The consortium conducted an analysis of data from more than 33,300 cases of individuals with psychiatric illness and more than 27, 900 of cases without psychiatric illness of European ancestry.

The study was funded by the National Institute of Mental Health grant U01 MH085520, The work also was supported by a number of U.S. National Institutes of Health grants and similar numbers of government grants from other countries, along with substantial private and foundation support.

The Cross-Disorder Group of the Psychiatric Genomics Consortium includes a wide number of researchers from many countries who have come together to advance knowledge of the genetic causes of mental illness.

To read the study abstract visit: http://www.thelancet.com/journals/lancet/article/PIIS0140-6736(12)62129-1/abstract


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