PLoS ONE (Jan 2014)

Exome sequencing in 53 sporadic cases of schizophrenia identifies 18 putative candidate genes.

  • Michel Guipponi,
  • Federico A Santoni,
  • Vincent Setola,
  • Corinne Gehrig,
  • Maud Rotharmel,
  • Macarena Cuenca,
  • Olivier Guillin,
  • Dimitris Dikeos,
  • Georgios Georgantopoulos,
  • George Papadimitriou,
  • Logos Curtis,
  • Alexandre Méary,
  • Franck Schürhoff,
  • Stéphane Jamain,
  • Dimitri Avramopoulos,
  • Marion Leboyer,
  • Dan Rujescu,
  • Ann Pulver,
  • Dominique Campion,
  • David P Siderovski,
  • Stylianos E Antonarakis

DOI
https://doi.org/10.1371/journal.pone.0112745
Journal volume & issue
Vol. 9, no. 11
p. e112745

Abstract

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Schizophrenia (SCZ) is a severe, debilitating mental illness which has a significant genetic component. The identification of genetic factors related to SCZ has been challenging and these factors remain largely unknown. To evaluate the contribution of de novo variants (DNVs) to SCZ, we sequenced the exomes of 53 individuals with sporadic SCZ and of their non-affected parents. We identified 49 DNVs, 18 of which were predicted to alter gene function, including 13 damaging missense mutations, 2 conserved splice site mutations, 2 nonsense mutations, and 1 frameshift deletion. The average number of exonic DNV per proband was 0.88, which corresponds to an exonic point mutation rate of 1.7×10(-8) per nucleotide per generation. The non-synonymous-to-synonymous mutation ratio of 2.06 did not differ from neutral expectations. Overall, this study provides a list of 18 putative candidate genes for sporadic SCZ, and when combined with the results of similar reports, identifies a second proband carrying a non-synonymous DNV in the RGS12 gene.