Search

Currently, many studies on neuropsychiatric disorders have utilized massive trio-based whole-exome sequencing (WES) and whole-genome sequencing (WGS) to identify numerous de novomutations (DNMs). Here, we retrieved 17?104 DNMs from 3555 trios across four neuropsychiatric disorders: autism spectrum disorder, epileptic encephalopathy, intellectual disability and schizophrenia, in addition to unaffected siblings (control), from 36 studies by WES/WGS. After eliminating non-exonic variants, we focused on 3334 exonic DNMs for evaluation of their association with these diseases. Our results revealed a higher prevalence of DNMs in the probands of all four disorders compared with the one in the controls (P<1.3 × 10-7). The elevated DNM frequency is dominated by loss-of-function/deleterious single-nucleotide variants and frameshift indels (that is, extreme mutations, P<4.5 × 10-5). With extensive annotation of these ‘extreme’ mutations, we prioritized 764 candidate genes in these four disorders. A combined analysis of Gene Ontology, microRNA targets and transcription factor targets revealed shared biological process and non-coding regulatory elements of candidate genes in the pathology of neuropsychiatric disorders. In addition, weighted gene co-expression network analysis of human laminar-specific neocortical expression data showed that candidate genes are convergent on eight shared modules with specific layer enrichment and biological process features. Furthermore, we identified that 53 candidate genes are associated with more than one disorder (P<0.000001), suggesting a possibly shared genetic etiology underlying these disorders. Particularly, DNMs of the SCN2Agene are frequently occurred across all four disorders. Finally, we constructed a freely available NPdenovo database, which provides a comprehensive catalog of the DNMs identified in neuropsychiatric disorders.

Correction to: Molecular Psychiatry advance online publication, 7 April 2015; doi:10.1038/mp.2015.40 Following publication of this paper, the authors noticed that the postal address shown for corresponding authors J Wu and ZS Sun was incorrect. The authors also note that the corresponding authors were listed in incorrect order.