Antipsychotic mediated changes in CNTNAP3 gene expression in SK-N-SH cells

Abstract

Introduction. Schizophrenia is one of the most common and severe psychotic disorders of all. A growing number of researchers understand the need of genetic studies to unravel the pathophysiological mechanisms of mental disorders and their treatments. In this sense, a recent research reported changes in the expression of 17 genes after antipsychotic treatment. Among these genes, ADAMTS2, CD177, CNTNAP3, ENTPD2, RFX2, and UNC45B were overexpressed in patients with schizophrenia. The expression of these genes reverted to control values after 3 months of antipsychotic treatment. We have focused our study in the CNTNAP3 gene that is implicated in neuron-glia communication, and belongs to the NCP family of genes, which have been associated with schizophrenia. The aim of this study is to describe the concentration and time dependent changes in CNTNAP-3 gene expression in SK-N-SH cells treated with four antipsychotics during 24 hours.