Genetic variability in scaffolding proteins and risk for schizophrenia and autism-spectrum disorders: a systematic review.

Genetic variability in scaffolding proteins and risk for schizophrenia and autism-spectrum disorders: a systematic review. J Psychiatry Neurosci. 2018 Jul;43(4):223-244 Authors: Soler J, Fañanás L, Parellada M, Krebs MO, Rouleau GA, Fatjó-Vilas M Abstract Scaffolding proteins represent an evolutionary solution to controlling the specificity of information transfer in intracellular networks. They are highly concentrated in complexes located in specific subcellular locations. One of these complexes is the postsynaptic density of the excitatory synapses. There, scaffolding proteins regulate various processes related to synaptic plasticity, such as glutamate receptor trafficking and signalling, and dendritic structure and function. Most scaffolding proteins can be grouped into 4 main families: discs large (DLG), discs-large-associated protein (DLGAP), Shank and Homer. Owing to the importance of scaffolding proteins in postsynaptic density architecture, it is not surprising that variants in the genes that code for these proteins have been associated with neuropsychiatric diagnoses, including schizophrenia and autism-spectrum disorders. Such evidence, together with the clinical, neurobiological and genetic overlap described between schizophrenia and autism-spectrum disorders, suggest that alteration of scaffolding protein dynamics could be part of the pathophysiology of both. However, despite the potential importance of scaffolding prot...
Source: Journal of Psychiatry and Neuroscience - Category: Psychiatry Tags: J Psychiatry Neurosci Source Type: research