No difference was observed between the patients with schizophrenia and controls from the Australian Tissue Resource Center samples in the mRNA levels of ZNF804A, OPCML, RPGRIP1L, NRGN, or TCF4.
ZNF804A, encoding the transcription factor zinc-finger protein 804A, is a genome-wide supported psychosis gene associated with schizophrenia and bipolar disorder.
However, unbiased genome-wide analysis of the sequencing data for cryptic structural variation was key to reveal an additional submicroscopic inversion that truncates the schizophrenia- and bipolar disorder-associated brain transcription factor ZNF804A as an equally likely NDD-driving gene.
A number of genes that undergo radical changes in expression during this transition include candidates for schizophrenia (SZ), bipolar disorder (BD) and autism spectrum disorders (ASD) that function as transcription factors and chromatin modifiers, such as POU3F2 and ZNF804A, and genes coding for cell adhesion proteins implicated in these conditions including NRXN1 and NLGN1.
These include ZNF804A, TCF4 and NRGN, which contain common variants that weakly increase schizophrenia susceptibility, and NRXN1, in which rare copy number variants have a greater impact on schizophrenia risk.
These findings suggest that ZNF804A affects the GMV of the prefrontal cortex by interacting with COMT, which may improve our understanding of neurobiological effect of ZNF804A and its association with schizophrenia.
These data are consistent with our earlier behavioral data and suggest that ZNF804A is delineating a schizophrenia subtype characterized by relatively intact brain volume.
Discovery of the specific pathways through which ZNF804A is exerting this effect may lead to better prevention, diagnosis and treatment for a specific group of schizophrenia patients.
Further functional exploration of ZNF804A will greatly help us to elucidate the pathogenesis of schizophrenia and find promising new approaches for the treatment of this disorder.
Previous data have also directly implicated one of the best supported schizophrenia-associated loci, zinc finger binding protein 804A (ZNF804A), as showing trans-disorder effects, and the same is true for one of the best supported bipolar loci, calcium channel, voltage-dependent, L type, alpha 1C subunit (CACNA1C) which has also been associated with schizophrenia.
Most GWAS risk variations were reported to affect neuroimaging phenotypes implicated in SZ/BD: white-matter integrity (ANK3 and ZNF804A), volume (CACNA1C and ZNF804A) and density (ZNF804A); grey-matter (CACNA1C, NRGN, TCF4 and ZNF804A) and ventricular (TCF4) volume; cortical folding (NCAN) and thickness (ZNF804A); regional activation during executive tasks (ANK3, CACNA1C, DGKH, NRGN and ZNF804A) and functional connectivity during executive tasks (CACNA1C and ZNF804A), facial affect recognition (CACNA1C and ZNF804A) and theory-of-mind (ZNF804A); but inconsistencies and non-replications also exist.
These findings suggest that ZNF804A affects the resting-state functional activation by interacting with COMT, and may improve our understanding of the neurobiological effects of ZNF804A and its association with schizophrenia.
ZNF804A, a genomewide supported susceptibility gene for schizophrenia and bipolar disorder, has been associated with task-independent functional connectivity between the left and right dorsolateral prefrontal cortices.
Rs1344706, an intronic SNP within ZNF804A, was identified as one of the most compelling candidate risk SNPs for schizophrenia in Europeans through genome-wide association studies (GWASs) and replications as well as large-scale meta-analyses.
Interactome analysis reveals ZNF804A, a schizophrenia risk gene, as a novel component of protein translational machinery critical for embryonic neurodevelopment.