Marked Reduction of AKT1 Expression and Deregulation of AKT1-associated Pathways in Peripheral Blood Mononuclear Cells of Schizophrenia Patients

Recent studies have suggested that deregulated AKT1 signaling is associated with schizophrenia. We hypothesized that if this is indeed the case, we should observe both decreased AKT1 expression as well as deregulation of AKT1 regulated pathways in Peripheral Blood Mononuclear Cells (PBMCs) of schizophrenia patients. We therefore examined PBMC expression levels of AKT1 in schizophrenia patients versus controls, and examined whether functional biological processes in which AKT1 plays an important role are deregulated in schizophrenia patients. We performed a case-control study, investigating whole-genome PBMC gene expression in male, recent onset (<5 years) schizophrenia patients (N=43) as compared to controls (N=29). Genes, differentially expressed between patients and controls were identified using ANOVA with Benjamini-Hochberg correction (false discovery rate (FDR)= 0.05). Functional aspects of the deregulated set of genes were investigated with the Ingenuity Pathway Analysis (IPA) Software Tool.

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