Genetic correlation between amyotrophic lateral sclerosis and schizophrenia.
other · Level V
Where this comes from
- Record sourced from PubMed, PMID 28322246.
- Also identified by DOI 10.1038/ncomms14774 and PMC identifier 5364411.
- Licence recorded as CC BY.
- The licence permits redistribution, so the abstract is shown in full and the full text is available from the publisher.
Abstract
We have previously shown higher-than-expected rates of schizophrenia in relatives of patients with amyotrophic lateral sclerosis (ALS), suggesting an aetiological relationship between the diseases. Here, we investigate the genetic relationship between ALS and schizophrenia using genome-wide association study data from over 100,000 unique individuals. Using linkage disequilibrium score regression, we estimate the genetic correlation between ALS and schizophrenia to be 14.3% (7.05-21.6; P=1 × 10<sup>-4</sup>) with schizophrenia polygenic risk scores explaining up to 0.12% of the variance in ALS (P=8.4 × 10<sup>-7</sup>). A modest increase in comorbidity of ALS and schizophrenia is expected given these findings (odds ratio 1.08-1.26) but this would require very large studies to observe epidemiologically. We identify five potential novel ALS-associated loci using conditional false discovery rate analysis. It is likely that shared neurobiological mechanisms between these two disorders will engender novel hypotheses in future preclinical and clinical studies.
Medical subject headings
- Amyotrophic Lateral Sclerosis
- Schizophrenia