Active ribosomal genes, translational homeostasis and oxidative stress in the pathogenesis of schizophrenia and autism.

Background: Infantile autism and schizophrenia are severe multifactorial disorders with a pronounced genetic predisposition. Their pathogeneses are often associated with oxidative stress in the brain. Previously, we established that a cell's resistance to oxidative stress depended on the copy number of transcriptionally active genes for rRNA (ribosomal genes) in the cell's genome.