Genome-wide association study results for educational attainment aid in identifying genetic heterogeneity of schizophrenia
Year: 2018
Type: article
Study design: Observational Study
Abstract: Higher educational attainment (EA) is negatively associated with schizophrenia (SZ). However, recent studies found a positive genetic correlation between EA and SZ. We investigate possible causes of this counterintuitive finding using genome-wide association study results for EA and SZ (N = 443, 581) and a replication cohort (1169 controls; 1067 cases) with deeply phenotyped SZ patients. We find strong genetic dependence between EA and SZ that cannot be explained by chance, linkage disequilibrium, or assortative mating. Instead, several genes seem to have pleiotropic effects on EA and SZ, but without a clear pattern of sign concordance. Using EA as a proxy phenotype, we isolate FOXO6 and SLITRK1 as novel candidate genes for SZ. Our results reveal that current SZ diagnoses aggregate over at least two disease subtypes: one part resembles high intelligence and bipolar disorder (BIP), while the other part is a cognitive disorder that is independent of BIP.
Institutions: German Center for Neurodegenerative Diseases, University Medical Center Hamburg-Eppendorf, Max Planck Institute of Experimental Medicine, Vrije Universiteit Amsterdam, Erasmus University Rotterdam, University of Göttingen, Broad Institute, Massachusetts General Hospital, Stanley Center for Psychiatric Research, Charité – Universitätsmedizin Berlin, Nanoscale Microscopy and Molecular Physiology of the Brain Cluster of Excellence 171 — DFG Research Center 103
Language: English
Subfield: Psychiatry and Mental health
Field: Medicine
Domain: Health Sciences
Open Access status: green
OpenAlex ID: W2789485900