Researchers at Rutgers and Emory University are gaining insights into how schizophrenia develops by studying the strongest-known genetic risk factor.
When a small portion of Chromosome 3 is missing – known as 3q29 deletion syndrome – it increases the risk for schizophrenia by about 40 fold. Researchers have now analyzed overlapping patterns of altered gene activity in two models of 3q29 deletion syndrome, including mice where the deletion has been engineered in using CRIPSR, and human brain organoids, or three-dimensional tissue cultures used to study disease. These two systems both exhibit impaired mitochondrial function. This dysfunction can cause energy shortfalls in the brain and result in psychiatric symptoms and disorders.
“Our data give strong support to the hypothesis that mitochondrial dysregulation is a contributor to the development of schizophrenia,” said Jennifer Mulle, associate professor of psychiatry, neuroscience and cell biology at Rutgers Robert Wood Johnson Medical School and a co-senior author of the study published in Science Advances. “The interplay between mitochondrial dynamics and neuronal maturation is an important area for additional detailed and rigorous study.”