Schizophrenia (SZ) and bipolar disorder (BPD) patients show a downregulation of GAD67, reelin (RELN), brain-derived neurotrophic factor (BDNF), and other genes expressed in telencephalic GABAergic and glutamatergic neurons.
A number of neuropsychiatric disorders including autism, schizophrenia, bipolar disorder, major depression, Alzheimer's disease and lissencephaly share a common feature of abnormal Reelin expression in the brain.
We evaluated whether an RELN gene variant, rs362719, which has been associated with increased susceptibility to bipolar disorder, is also associated with susceptibility to schizophrenia.
Previous results have revealed that reelin levels are decreased in post-mortem hippocampal tissue from patients with schizophrenia, bipolar disorder and depression, and also in an animal model of depression.
Recent studies have shown that Reelin, an extracellular protein that is critical for neuronal development, is reduced in schizophrenia and bipolar disorder patients.