Evaluation of European Schizophrenia GWAS Loci in Asian Populations via Comprehensive Meta-Analyses.
Schizophrenia is a severe and highly heritable neuropsychiatric disorder. Recent genetic analyses including genome-wide association studies (GWAS) have implicated multiple genome-wide significant variants for schizophrenia among European populations. However, many of these risk variants were not largely validated in other populations of different ancestry such as Asians. To validate whether these European GWAS significant loci are associated with schizophrenia in Asian populations, we conducted a systematic literature search and meta-analyses on 19 single nucleotide polymorphisms (SNPs) in Asian populations by combining all available case-control and family-based samples, including up to 30,000 individuals. We employed classical fixed (or random) effects inverse variance weighted methods to calculate summary odds ratios (ORs) and 95 % confidence intervals (CIs). Among the 19 GWAS loci, we replicated the risk associations of nine markers (e.g., SNPs at VRK2, ITIH3/4, NDST3, NOTCH4) surpassing significance level (two-tailed P < 0.05), and three additional SNPs in MIR137 and ZNF804A also showed trend associations (one-tailed P < 0.05). These risk associations are in the same directions of allelic effects between Asian replication samples and initial European GWAS findings, and the successful replications of these GWAS loci in a different ethnic group provide stronger evidence for their clinical associations with schizophrenia. Further studies, focusing on the molecular mechanisms of these GWAS significant loci, will become increasingly important for understanding of the pathogenesis to schizophrenia.
Key Laboratory of Animal Models and Human Disease Mechanisms of the Chinese Academy of Sciences and Yunnan Province, Kunming Institute of Zoology, Kunming, Yunnan, China.
Xiao
X
Xiao
Key Laboratory of Animal Models and Human Disease Mechanisms of the Chinese Academy of Sciences and Yunnan Province, Kunming Institute of Zoology, Kunming, Yunnan, China.
Xiong-Jian
XJ
Luo
Key Laboratory of Animal Models and Human Disease Mechanisms of the Chinese Academy of Sciences and Yunnan Province, Kunming Institute of Zoology, Kunming, Yunnan, China.
Hong
H
Chang
Key Laboratory of Special Biological Resource Development and Utilization of Universities in Yunnan Province, Department of Biological Science and Technology, Kunming University, Kunming, Yunnan, China.
Zichao
Z
Liu
Key Laboratory of Animal Models and Human Disease Mechanisms of the Chinese Academy of Sciences and Yunnan Province, Kunming Institute of Zoology, Kunming, Yunnan, China. limingkiz@mail.kiz.ac.cn.
Ming
M
Li
D044466:Asian People / Q000235:genetics*; D056426:Genetic Loci; D055106:Genome-Wide Association Study; D006801:Humans; D020641:Polymorphism, Single Nucleotide / Q000235:genetics; D012559:Schizophrenia / Q000235:genetics*; D044465:White People / Q000235:genetics*
Asian; European; GWAS; Meta-analyses; Replication; Schizophrenia