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Schizophrenia Genetic Liability Drives Chronic Disease Risk in Unaffected Individuals through Immune and Metabolic
Wenming Wei1,2, Bolun Cheng1,2, Dan He1,2
1NHC Key Laboratory of Environment and Endemic Diseases, School of Public Health, Health Science Center, Xi'an Jiaotong University, Xi'an, China.
Individuals with higher genetic risk for schizophrenia (SCZ) show increased risk for chronic diseases like asthma and COPD, linked to shared immune and metabolic pathways. This suggests a psycho-neuro-immune-metabolic connection in SCZ-related physical comorbidity.
Area of Science:
- Genetics
- Psychiatry
- Immunology
- Metabolomics
Background:
- Comorbidity between schizophrenia (SCZ) and chronic diseases is established.
- The risk of chronic diseases in individuals with elevated SCZ genetic liability but without SCZ is unknown.
- Underlying biological pathways for these associations require elucidation.
Purpose of the Study:
- To investigate the association between SCZ genetic liability and chronic diseases in individuals without SCZ.
- To identify biological pathways mediating these associations using multi-omics data.
- To explore shared genetic signals between SCZ liability and chronic diseases.
Main Methods:
- Analysis of 426,237 UK Biobank participants without SCZ.
- Logistic regression to assess SCZ polygenic risk score (SCZ-PRS) associations with 24 chronic diseases.
- Multi-omics mediation analysis incorporating inflammatory markers, plasma proteins, and metabolites.
- Genetic colocalization analysis to identify shared genetic loci.
Main Results:
- Higher SCZ-PRS associated with increased risk for asthma, COPD, liver disease, peptic ulcer, and fluid/electrolyte disorders.
- Higher SCZ-PRS associated with reduced risk for diabetes and renal disease.
- Bidirectional associations linked to immune cell activity, lipid/energy metabolism, and immune-regulatory proteins.
- Shared genetic signals at HLA and SLC39A8 loci confirmed immune-metabolic pathways.
Conclusions:
- SCZ-PRS is linked to various chronic diseases in unaffected individuals, indicating shared biological pathways.
- Findings support a psycho-neuro-immune-metabolic model for SCZ-related physical comorbidity.
- Highlights integrated psychosomatic understanding of shared biology between psychiatric vulnerability and chronic physical diseases.
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