Background: Transcriptome sequencing of brain samples provides detailed enrichment analysis of differential expression and genetic interactions for evaluation of mitochondrial and coagulation function of schizophrenia. It is implicated that schizophrenia genetic and protein interactions may give rise to biological dysfunction of energy metabolism and hemostasis. These findings may explain the biological mechanisms responsible for negative and withdraw symptoms of schizophrenia and antipsychotic-induced venous thromboembolism.
Results: Published BA22 RNA-Seq brain data of 9 schizophrenic patients and 9 controls samples were analyzed. The differentially expressed genes in the BA22 brain samples of schizophrenia are proposed as schizophrenia candidate marker genes (SCZCGs). The genetic interactions between mitochondrial genes and many under-expressed SCZCGs indicate the genetic predisposition of mitochondria dysfunction in schizophrenia. The biological functions of SCZCGs, as listed in the Pathway Interaction Database (PID), indicate that these genes have roles in DNA binding transcription factor, signal and cancer-related pathways, coagulation and cell cycle regulation and differentiation pathways.
Conclusions: It is implicated that the energy metabolism and hemostatic process have important roles in the pathogenesis for schizophrenia. The cross-talk of genetic interaction by these co-expressed genes and reached candidate genes may address the key network in disease pathology. The accuracy of candidate genes evaluated from different quantification tools could be improved by crosstalk analysis of overlapping genes in genetic networks.