1. A miR-137-Related Biological Pathway of Risk for Schizophrenia Is Associated With Human Brain Emotion Processing.
- Author
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Pergola G, Rampino A, Sportelli L, Borcuk CJ, Passiatore R, Di Carlo P, Marakhovskaia A, Fazio L, Amoroso N, Castro MN, Domenici E, Gennarelli M, Khlghatyan J, Kikidis GC, Lella A, Magri C, Monaco A, Papalino M, Parihar M, Popolizio T, Quarto T, Romano R, Torretta S, Valsecchi P, Zunuer H, Blasi G, Dukart J, Beaulieu JM, and Bertolino A
- Subjects
- Humans, Genome-Wide Association Study, Brain, Emotions, Schizophrenia, MicroRNAs genetics, MicroRNAs metabolism
- Abstract
Background: miR-137 is a microRNA involved in brain development, regulating neurogenesis and neuronal maturation. Genome-wide association studies have implicated miR-137 in schizophrenia risk but do not explain its involvement in brain function and underlying biology. Polygenic risk for schizophrenia mediated by miR-137 targets is associated with working memory, although other evidence points to emotion processing. We characterized the functional brain correlates of miR-137 target genes associated with schizophrenia while disentangling previously reported associations of miR-137 targets with working memory and emotion processing., Methods: Using RNA sequencing data from postmortem prefrontal cortex (N = 522), we identified a coexpression gene set enriched for miR-137 targets and schizophrenia risk genes. We validated the relationship of this set to miR-137 in vitro by manipulating miR-137 expression in neuroblastoma cells. We translated this gene set into polygenic scores of coexpression prediction and associated them with functional magnetic resonance imaging activation in healthy volunteers (n
1 = 214; n2 = 136; n3 = 2075; n4 = 1800) and with short-term treatment response in patients with schizophrenia (N = 427)., Results: In 4652 human participants, we found that 1) schizophrenia risk genes were coexpressed in a biologically validated set enriched for miR-137 targets; 2) increased expression of miR-137 target risk genes was mediated by low prefrontal miR-137 expression; 3) alleles that predict greater gene set coexpression were associated with greater prefrontal activation during emotion processing in 3 independent healthy cohorts (n1 , n2 , n3 ) in interaction with age (n4 ); and 4) these alleles predicted less improvement in negative symptoms following antipsychotic treatment in patients with schizophrenia., Conclusions: The functional translation of miR-137 target gene expression linked with schizophrenia involves the neural substrates of emotion processing., (Copyright © 2023 Society of Biological Psychiatry. All rights reserved.)- Published
- 2024
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