Using a computational model they developed, researchers at the School of Medicine have discovered more than 500 new protein-protein interactions (PPIs) associated with genes linked to schizophrenia. The findings, published in npj Schizophrenia, could lead to greater understanding of the biological underpinnings of this mental illness, as well as point the way to treatments.
Senior investigator Madhavi Ganapathiraju, ISP and biomedical informatics faculty member in the School of Medicine, noted that there have been many genome-wide association studies (GWAS) that have identified gene variants associated with an increased risk for schizophrenia, but in most cases there is little known about the proteins that these genes make, what they do and how they interact.