Publications by authors named "Zachary Flood"
Article Synopsis
- Noncoding variants in the MIR137 gene are significantly linked to an increased risk of schizophrenia, yet their exact effects remain unclear.
- Induced human neurons with risk-associated alleles showed elevated levels of microRNA-137, leading to decreased expression of essential presynaptic genes and impairments in vesicle release.
- Experiments in living organisms revealed that increased miR-137 levels disrupted synaptic plasticity and memory functions, but reducing miR-137 helped improve these deficits, highlighting the critical role of the target gene Syt1 in this process.
Disrupted in Schizophrenia-1 (DISC1) is a candidate gene for psychiatric disorders and has many roles during brain development. Common DISC1 polymorphisms (variants) are associated with neuropsychiatric phenotypes including altered cognition, brain structure, and function; however, it is unknown how this occurs. Here, we demonstrate using mouse, zebrafish, and human model systems that DISC1 variants are loss of function in Wnt/GSK3β signaling and disrupt brain development.
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