Identification of druggable genes for schizophrenia based on Mendelian randomization

Objective To find the potential therapeutic targetgenes of schizophrenia (SCZ).

Methods Druggable genes were obtained from eQTLGen database and integrated with genome-wide association studies (GWAS) data of SCZ. Two-sample Mendelian randomization (MR) and colocalization analysis were used to calculate the association between expression quantitative trait loci (eQTL) of druggable genes and the presence of common pathogenic variants in SCZ. Finally, summary-data-based MR (SMR) was used to further validate the positive results of colocalization.

Results SMR identified six potentially druggable genes that were significantly associated with SCZ: NMB, IK, FGFR1, SERPING1, EDEM2 and CTSS.

Conclusion Six druggable genes that can be potential therapeutic targets for SCZ are identified by MR, colocalization and SMR validation, and these findings provide new insights into the development of SCZ therapy.