Using whole-exome sequencing, the authors identified 244,246 coding-sequence and splice-site ultra-rare variants (URVs) and found that gene-disruptive and putatively protein-damaging URVs were significantly more abundant in schizophrenia cases than in controls. The excess of protein-compromising URVs was concentrated in brain-specific genes, particularly in neuronally expressed genes whose proteins are located at the synapse.
- Giulio Genovese
- Menachem Fromer
- Steven A McCarroll