Rhythms in gene expression in the brain are highly disrupted in people with schizophrenia, according to a new University of Pittsburgh-led study.
The findings, published today by researchers from the Pitt’s School of Medicine in the journal Nature Communications , also suggest that researchers studying schizophrenia-linked genes in the brain could have missed important clues that would help understand the disease.
“Our study shows for the first time that there are significant disruptions in the daily timing of when some genes are turned on or off, which has implications for how we understand the disease at a molecular level,” said senior author Colleen McClung, Ph.D., professor of psychiatry at Pitt’s School of Medicine.
5 Likes
Thank you for posting this.
From what I understand, gene expression is a series of codes on how genes work. So if we have a mutation, the gene is not fully expressed.
For example: let’s say our gene says (borrowed from a geneticist’s videos)
“THE CAT SAW THE RAT BUT NOT THE BAT OUT” (OUT is the end of the gene code) is the correct sentence, and then something goes on, causing my cell to read (in case of a missense mutation)
“The CAT SAW THE RAT OUT NOT THE BAT OUT” which causes the gene to stop reading the code after ‘rat’ and just ignores the rest of the sentence.
I honestly don’t know how it is related to rhythms but it must be related to how our genes work during the day and night.
1 Like
WOW! That’s big news for schizophrenics!
Thank you @firemonkey.