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Genetic overlap between epilepsy and schizophrenia: Evidence from cross phenotype analysis in Hong Kong Chinese population
Author(s) -
Gui Hongsheng,
Li Miaoxin,
Sham Pak C.,
Baum Larry,
Kwan Patrick,
Cherny Stacey S.
Publication year - 2018
Publication title -
american journal of medical genetics part b: neuropsychiatric genetics
Language(s) - English
Resource type - Journals
SCImago Journal Rank - 1.393
H-Index - 126
eISSN - 1552-485X
pISSN - 1552-4841
DOI - 10.1002/ajmg.b.32607
Subject(s) - schizophrenia (object oriented programming) , epilepsy , odds ratio , comorbidity , population , phenotype , psychosis , medicine , disease , psychiatry , clinical psychology , genetics , biology , environmental health , gene
Epilepsy and schizophrenia are common and typical neurological or mental illness respectively, and sometimes they comorbid in the same patients, however the underlying genetic relationship between the two brain diseases is still not fully understood. To investigate the possible genetic contribution to their comorbidity, we performed polygenic risk score (PRS) analyses and genetic correlation estimation so as to identify the overall genetic overlap between the two diseases. The global schizophrenia PRS is strongly associated with schizophrenia phenotype in Hong Kong population (odds ratio = 1.7, p = 2.26E‐16), and focal epilepsy PRS is moderately associated with epilepsy phenotype in Hong Kong population (odds ratio = 1.14, p = 0.013). However the disease‐specific PRS can only predict its own well‐matched phenotype but not the other ones ( p > 0.05). This pattern is further supported by non‐significant pairwise genetic correlation and insufficient statistical power for PRS association from the cross‐phenotype analyses. Our study reveals there's limited shared genetic aetiology between schizophrenia and epilepsy, and thus supports a model of shared environmental factors to explain the comorbidity between the two phenotypes.