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Immune system gene dysregulation in autism and schizophrenia
Author(s) -
Michel Maximilian,
Schmidt Martin J.,
Mirnics Karoly
Publication year - 2012
Publication title -
developmental neurobiology
Language(s) - English
Resource type - Journals
SCImago Journal Rank - 1.716
H-Index - 129
eISSN - 1932-846X
pISSN - 1932-8451
DOI - 10.1002/dneu.22044
Subject(s) - autism , immune system , schizophrenia (object oriented programming) , immune dysregulation , disease , biomarker , immunology , innate immune system , neuroscience , psychosis , biology , psychology , genetics , medicine , psychiatry , pathology
Gene*environment interactions play critical roles in the emergence of autism and schizophrenia pathophysiology. In both disorders, recent genetic association studies have provided evidence for disease‐linked variation in immune system genes and postmortem gene expression studies have shown extensive chronic immune abnormalities in brains of diseased subjects. Furthermore, peripheral biomarker studies revealed that both innate and adaptive immune systems are dysregulated. In both disorders symptoms of the disease correlate with the immune system dysfunction; yet, in autism this process appears to be chronic and sustained, while in schizophrenia it is exacerbated during acute episodes. Furthermore, since immune abnormalities endure into adulthood and anti‐inflammatory agents appear to be beneficial, it is likely that these immune changes actively contribute to disease symptoms. Modeling these changes in animals provided further evidence that prenatal maternal immune activation alters neurodevelopment and leads to behavioral changes that are relevant for autism and schizophrenia. The converging evidence strongly argues that neurodevelopmental immune insults and genetic background critically interact and result in increased risk for either autism or schizophrenia. Further research in these areas may improve prenatal health screening in genetically at‐risk families and may also lead to new preventive and/or therapeutic strategies. © 2012 Wiley Periodicals, Inc. Develop Neurobiol, 2012