Assessment of relatedness between neurocan gene as bipolar disorder susceptibility locus and schizophrenia

Abstract

Large scale genetic association meta-analyses showed that neurocan (NCAN) gene polymorphism rs1064395 is susceptibility locus for bipolar disorder. These studies also included patients with bipolar disorder originated from Bosnia and Herzegovina. Followed by theory of shared genetic elements between bipolar disorder and schizophrenia susceptibility, other studies explored several genetic factors with schizophrenia vulnerability as well. In this work, authors investigated the association between previously confirmed bipolar disorder genetic risk factor- neurocan with schizophrenia in a population sample of Bosnia and Herzegovina. Ethical aspects of this research were assessed by Ethics Committee of Clinical Center University of Sarajevo. Blood samples for DNA extraction were taken from the total of 86 patients and healthy individuals who previously signed informed consent. Genotyping for rs 1064395 was done using direct sequencing method. A case-control analysis of common genetic polymorphism within neurocan gene and schizophrenia status in a consecutively sampled patient cohort have been done using Fisher-exact test with odds-ratio calculation. No statistically significant allele and genotype association with disease status was found (p>0.05). Our finding supports the fact that large-scale genetic association studies approach need to be employed when detecting the variants with small additive effect in phenotypes with complex ethiology.

Chondroitin Sulfate Proteoglycans: Structure-Function Relationship with Implication in Neural Development and Brain Disorders

“…Their results showed that rs1064395 A-allele, known to be a risk factor for BD, was significantly overrepresented in schizophrenia patients compared to control group [17]. These results, sustained by similar data [18, 19, 70, 75], suggest that genetic variation in NCAN rs1064395 represents a common risk factor for BD and schizophrenia. The patients with schizophrenia showed significantly increased rates of BD in comparison with control subjects.…”

“…Also, the presence of NCAN mutants was associated with psychiatric disorders as bipolar disorder, schizophrenia, and ADHD [17–19, 70–74]. …”

“…Recently, Mühleisen et al [17], Cichon et al [18], Schultz et al [70], and Oruc et al [19] performed GWSA studies between common variation in the NCAN gene (NCAN, rs1064395) and the psychiatric disorders BD and schizophrenia.…”

“…NCAN polymorphism association with BD was also investigated by Oruc et al [19]. The aim of this study was to determine the relationship between NCAN polymorphism and genetic risk in a population sample from Bosnia and Herzegovina [19].…”

Decreased Density of Perineuronal Net in Prelimbic Cortex Is Linked to Depressive-Like Behavior in Young-Aged Rats

“…Genetic studies in humans revealed that the variation of NCAN, a gene encoding PNN component protein neurocan, is a common risk factor for schizophrenia and bipolar disorder (Mühleisen et al, 2012;Oruč et al, 2012;Schultz et al, 2014). Neurocan has also been shown to regulate brain development, dendritic spine remodeling and the function of GABAergic interneurons (Zhou et al, 2001;Mohan et al, 2018;Sullivan et al, 2018).…”