This prognostic study evaluates whether psychosis transition can be predicted in patients with clinical high-risk syndromes or recent-onset depression by multimodal machine learning that optimally integrates clinical and neurocognitive data, structural magnetic resonance imaging, and polygenic risk scores for schizophrenia.

Major depression (MD) and bipolar disorder (BD) are severe and potentially life-threating mood disorders whose etiology is to date not completely understood. MicroRNAs (miRNAs) are small non-coding RNAs that regulate protein synthesis post-transcriptionally by base-pairing to target gene mRNAs. Growing evidence indicated that miRNAs might play a key role in the pathogenesis of neuropsychiatric disorders and in the action of psychotropic drugs. On these bases, in this study 1 These authors contributed equally to this work 2 we evaluated the expression levels of the entire miRNome 1733 mature miRNAs annotated in miRBase v.17, through a microarray technique, in the blood of 20 MD and 20 BD patients and 20 healthy controls, in order to identify putative miRNA signatures associated with mood disorders.We found that 5 miRNAs (hsa-let-7a-5p, hsa-let-7d-5p, hsa-let-7f-5p, hsa-miR-24-3p and hsa-miR-425-3p) were specifically altered in MD patients and 5 (hsa-miR-140-3p, hsa-miR-30d-5p, hsamiR-330-5p, hsa-miR-378a-5p and hsa-miR-21-3p) in BD patients, whereas 2 miRNAs (hsa-miR-330-3p and hsa-miR-345-5p) were dysregulated in both the diseases. The bioinformatic prediction

BackgroundWhole-genome expression studies in the peripheral tissues of patients affected by schizophrenia (SCZ) can provide new insight into the molecular basis of the disorder and innovative biomarkers that may be of great utility in clinical practice. Recent evidence suggests that skin fibroblasts could represent a non-neural peripheral model useful for investigating molecular alterations in psychiatric disorders.MethodsA microarray expression study was conducted comparing skin fibroblast transcriptomic profiles from 20 SCZ patients and 20 controls. All genes strongly differentially expressed were validated by real-time quantitative PCR (RT-qPCR) in fibroblasts and analyzed in a sample of peripheral blood cell (PBC) RNA from patients (n = 25) and controls (n = 22). To evaluate the specificity for SCZ, alterations in gene expression were tested in additional samples of fibroblasts and PBCs RNA from Major Depressive Disorder (MDD) (n = 16; n = 21, respectively) and Bipolar Disorder (BD) patients (n = 15; n = 20, respectively).ResultsSix genes (JUN, HIST2H2BE, FOSB, FOS, EGR1, TCF4) were significantly upregulated in SCZ compared to control fibroblasts. In blood, an increase in expression levels was confirmed only for EGR1, whereas JUN was downregulated; no significant differences were observed for the other genes. EGR1 upregulation was specific for SCZ compared to MDD and BD.ConclusionsOur study reports the upregulation of JUN, HIST2H2BE, FOSB, FOS, EGR1 and TCF4 in the fibroblasts of SCZ patients. A significant alteration in EGR1 expression is also present in SCZ PBCs compared to controls and to MDD and BD patients, suggesting that this gene could be a specific biomarker helpful in the differential diagnosis of major psychoses.

Among children, severe acute respiratory syndrome coronavirus 2 (SARS-CoV-2) infections are typically mild. Here, we describe the case of a 3.5-year-old girl with an unusually severe presentation of coronavirus disease (COVID-19). The child had an autoinflammatory disorder of unknown etiology, which had been treated using prednisolone and methotrexate, and her parents were half cousins of Turkish descent. After 5 days of nonspecific viral infection symptoms, tonic-clonic seizures occurred followed by acute cardiac insufficiency, multi-organ insufficiency, and ultimate death. Trio exome sequencing identified a homozygous splice-variant in the gene TBK1, and a homozygous missense variant in the gene TNFRSF13B. Heterozygous deleterious variants in the TBK1 gene have been associated with severe COVID-19, and the variant in the TNFRSF13B gene has been associated with common variable immunodeficiency (CVID). We suggest that the identified variants, the autoinflammatory disorder and its treatment, or a combination of these factors probably predisposed to lethal COVID-19 in the present case.

Epidemiological and clinical studies have provided evidence for a role of both genetic and environmental factors, such as stressful experiences early in life, in the pathogenesis of Schizophrenia (SZ) and microRNAs (miRNAs) have been suggested to play a key role in the interplay between the environment and our genome. In this study, we conducted a miRNOme analysis in different samples (blood of adult subjects exposed to childhood trauma, brain (hippocampus) of rats exposed to prenatal stress and human hippocampal progenitor cells treated with cortisol) and we identified miR-125b-1-3p as a down-regulated miRNA in all the three datasets. Interestingly, a significant down-regulation was observed also in SZ patients exposed to childhood trauma. To investigate the biological systems targeted by miR-125b-1-3p and also involved in the effects of stress, we combined the list of biological pathways modulated by predicted and validated target genes of miR-125b-1-3p, with the biological systems significantly regulated by cortisol in the in vitro model. We found, as common pathways, the CXCR4 signaling, the G-alpha signaling, and the P2Y Purigenic Receptor Signaling Pathway, which are all involved in neurodevelopmental processes. Our data, obtained from the combining of miRNAs datasets across different tissues and species, identified miR-125b-1-3p as a key marker associated with the long-term effects of stress early in life and also with the enhanced vulnerability of developing SZ. The identification of such a miRNA biomarker could allow the early detection of vulnerable subjects for SZ and could provide the basis for the development of preventive therapeutic strategies.

Background: Early onset dementias (EOD) are rare neurodegenerative dementias that present before 65 years. Genetic factors have a substantially higher pathogenetic contribution in EOD patients than in late onset dementia. Objective: To identify known and/or novel rare variants in major candidate genes associated to EOD by high-throughput sequencing. Common-risk variants of apolipoprotein E ( APOE ) and prion protein ( PRNP ) genes were also assessed. Methods: We studied 22 EOD patients recruited in Memory Clinics, in the context of studies investigating genetic forms of dementia. Two methodological approaches were applied for the target-Next Generation Sequencing (NGS) analysis of these patients. In addition, we performed progranulin plasma dosage, C9Orf72 hexanucleotide repeat expansion analysis, and APOE genotyping. Results: We detected three rare known pathogenic mutations in the GRN and PSEN2 genes and eleven unknown-impact mutations in the GRN , VCP , MAPT , FUS, TREM2, and NOTCH3 genes. Six patients were carriers of only common risk variants ( APOE and PRNP ), and one did not show any risk mutation/variant. Overall, 69% ( n = 9) of our early onset Alzheimer’s disease (EAOD) patients, compared with 34% ( n = 13) of sporadic late onset Alzheimer’s disease (LOAD) patients and 27% ( n = 73) of non-affected controls (ADNI, whole genome data), were carriers of at least two rare/common risk variants in the analyzed candidate genes panel, excluding the full penetrant mutations. Conclusion: This study suggests that EOD patients without full penetrant mutations are characterized by higher probability to carry polygenic risk alleles that patients with LOAD forms. This finding is in line with recently reported evidence, thus suggesting that the genetic risk factors identified in LOAD might modulate the risk also in EOAD.

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Genetic research has shaped the inflammatory bowel disease (IBD) landscape identifying nearly two hundred risk loci. Nonetheless, the identified variants rendered only a partial success in providing criteria for the differential diagnosis between ulcerative colitis (UC) and Crohn's disease (CD). Transcript levels from affected intestinal mucosa may serve as tentative biomarkers for improving classification and diagnosis of IBD. The aim of our study was to identify gene expression profiles specific for UC and CD, in endoscopically affected and normal intestinal colonic mucosa from IBD patients. We evaluated a panel of 84 genes related to the IBD-inflammatory pathway on 21 UC and 22 CD paired inflamed and not inflamed mucosa and on age-matched normal mucosa from 21 non-IBD controls. Two genes in UC (CCL11 and MMP10) and two in CD (C4BPB and IL1RN) showed an upregulation trend in both noninflamed and inflamed mucosa compared to controls. Our results suggest that the transcript levels of CCL11, MMP10, C4BPB, and IL1RN are candidate biomarkers that could help in clinical practice for the differential diagnosis between UC and CD and could guide new research on future therapeutic targets.