Project Description

Schizophrenia (SCZ) is a complex neuropsychiatric disorder with a lifetime prevalence of ~1%. It is chronic and disabling, highly heritable, and has a complex phenotype. Poor medication response, frequent relapse, and a chronic course place significant burdens on sufferers, their families, and society. Pharmacological treatments have shown resistance to most antipsychotics. The majority of patients who respond to drugs also may experience multiple relapses during the course of the illness.

Emerging evidence suggests that the host's inherent epigenome signature may be the cause of altered drug response to antipsychotic drugs; alternatively, drug exposure may affect the epigenome, resulting in Pharmacogenetics (epigenetics modification in response to drugs). DNA methylation (5mc, 5hmc), an epigenetic modification, has been proposed to be involved in both the pathology and drug treatment of these disorders. Understanding the impact of DNA methylation, Methylation pathway genes, and antipsychotic target genes in treatment outcomes in schizophrenia may highlight the role of Pharmaco-epigenetics in treatment outcomes.