Differential expression and enrichment analysis of brain energy metabolism genes in schizophrenia

Schizophrenia is mental disorder characterized by a large variety of symptoms such as
paranoia, delusions, lack of motivation and problems in attention and memory. In recent years it has been hypothesized that mitochondrial dysfunction and energy metabolism dysregulation may contribute to the pathophysiology of schizophrenia [1]. Therefore, we studied the mRNA expression of the prefrontal cortex (PFC) using the CommonMind data set [2] to find out if there is a significant enrichment of differentially expressed metabolism genes between control group and schizophrenia patients. In addition, we studied the enrichment of the three key energy metabolism pathways: glycolysis, tricarboxylic acid cycle, and oxidative phosphorylation. According to our analyses all these pathways were enriched in the mRNA expression data. The results indicate that the majority of differently expressed energy metabolism genes are downregulated in schizophrenia, and the downregulation seems to be strongest among genes related to oxidative phosphorylation. Our results further support the hypothesis of altered brain energy metabolism in schizophrenia and pave way for a computational modelling analysis of these genetic alterations.