Cortical gene expression architecture links healthy neurodevelopment to the imaging, transcriptomics and genetics of autism and schizophrenia
Publication: Nature Neuroscience
Richard Dear, Konrad Wagstyl, Jakob Seidlitz, Ross D. Markello, Aurina Arnatkevičiūtė, Kevin M. Anderson, Richard A. I. Bethlehem, Lifespan Brain Chart Consortium, Armin Raznahan, Edward T. Bullmore & Petra E. Vértes
22 April 2024
Summary
Human brain organization involves the coordinated expression of thousands of genes. For example, the first principal component (C1) of cortical transcription identifies a hierarchy from sensorimotor to association regions. In this study, optimized processing of the Allen Human Brain Atlas revealed two new components of cortical gene expression architecture, C2 and C3, which are distinctively enriched for neuronal, metabolic and immune processes, specific cell types and cytoarchitectonics, and genetic variants associated with intelligence. Using additional datasets (PsychENCODE, Allen Cell Atlas and BrainSpan), we found that C1–C3 represent generalizable transcriptional programs that are coordinated within cells and differentially phased during fetal and postnatal development.