In the past years, the Psychiatric Genomics Consortium has led many extremely successful large-scale genetics studies -- identifying hundreds of loci underlying psychiatric disorders and providing initial insights into the disease pathogenesis. However, most of these studies focused on European ancestry populations. Without the global human genetic diversity, this bias has cost us important scientific knowledge and impeded the application of existing genetic findings to most of the world?s population. To address this important gap in scientific knowledge and to advance global mental health equity, we propose a supplement to the parent award to support an effort to compile a sample of over 30,000 schizophrenia patients and similar number of matched controls of East Asian ancestry. We will leverage this sample to identify novel genetic loci associated with schizophrenia in the East Asian ancestry and across the world, to evaluate the transferability of the polygenic risk score, and to elucidate the contribution of the major histocompatibility complex locus to schizophrenia. Findings from this supplement will provide additional insights into the schizophrenia genetic architecture, especially in its genetic epidemiology across the word populations. This supplement will be a critical enhancement to the existing PGC efforts and the parent award.
Large-scale genomics studies have identified hundreds of genetic loci underlying psychiatric disorders and provided initial insights into their disease pathogenesis. However, most of these studies only used subjects of European ancestry, costing us important scientific knowledge and impeding the application of existing genetic findings to most of the world?s population. This proposed study compiles and uses a large sample of East Asia ancestry to provide critical insight into the psychiatric disease genetic architecture.
