Qualitative Meta-analysis to Identify Genomic Variants that are Correlated with the Development of Schizophrenia

Abstract

Introduction

Schizophrenia is a devastating and complex disease, which occurs in approximately 1% of the general population. Symptoms include hallucinations, delusions and patients’ social withdrawal. Schizophrenia's etiology remains unclear, however, both patients’ genetic profile and environmental factors play a significant role.

Objectives

Our study's primary objective was to identify genetic variants related with schizophrenia's development in non-Caucasians populations and to explore whether these polymorphisms can be also found in schizophrenia patients of Caucasian origin.

Methods

To achieve that, we screened Science Direct and PubMed medical literature databases to identify research articles correlating genes and variants with the development of schizophrenia. Next step was the categorization of studies according to samples’ origin and the identification of genomic variants that are correlated with schizophrenia (P < 0.001) but have never been studied in Caucasian populations.

Results

In total, 108 and 47 studies, in non-Caucasian and Caucasian populations respectively, were identified, in which 157 (P < 0.05) and 18 (P < 0.001) variants were associated with the development of the disease in non-Caucasian populations.

Conclusions

From our qualitative meta-analysis 18 variants that were correlated with schizophrenia's etiology were identified (P < 0.001), which will be further investigated in a multi-cultural Caucasian cohort.

Disclosure of interest

The authors have not supplied their declaration of competing interest.