{"id":527396,"date":"2026-06-22T12:37:15","date_gmt":"2026-06-22T10:37:15","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.unipi.it\/news\/schizofrenia-scoperti-oltre-600-nuovi-geni-coinvolti-nella-malattia\/"},"modified":"2026-07-13T12:22:11","modified_gmt":"2026-07-13T10:22:11","slug":"schizophrenia-more-than-600-new-genes-linked-to-the-disorder","status":"publish","type":"news","link":"https:\/\/www.unipi.it\/en\/news\/schizophrenia-more-than-600-new-genes-linked-to-the-disorder\/","title":{"rendered":"Schizophrenia: a study identifies more than 600 new genes linked to the disorder"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><strong>Understanding how genetic variants influence the risk of developing schizophrenia is one of the major challenges in biomedical research<\/strong>. An important step forward comes from a study published in <a href=\"https:\/\/www.nature.com\/articles\/s41588-026-02646-3\"><em>Nature Genetics<\/em><\/a>, which <strong>identified 766 genes associated with the disorder, including<\/strong> <strong>641 that had never previously been implicated in schizophrenia in genome-wide studies<\/strong>.<\/p>\n<p>The research is the result of <strong>a large international collaboration<\/strong> involving Professor<strong> Silvia Pellegrini<\/strong> <strong>of the Department of Clinical and Experimental Medicine at the University of Pisa<\/strong>. Among the principal co-authors is Dr<strong> Giulia Grassi<\/strong> <strong>of the IMT School for Advanced Studies Lucca<\/strong>, who is carrying out her research project under Professor Pellegrini\u2019s supervision.<\/p>\n<p>The study used genetic data from more than 100,000 individuals collected by the <strong>Psychiatric Genomics Consortium<\/strong>, the world\u2019s largest international research network dedicated to investigating the genetic basis of psychiatric disorders.<\/p>\n<p>\u201c<strong>The results suggest that genetic risk for schizophrenia does not depend on the action of individual genes, but rather on their complex interactions<\/strong>,\u201d explains Professor<strong> Giulio Pergola<\/strong> <strong>of the University of Bari Aldo Moro, who led the project<\/strong>. \u201cThe newly identified genes regulate important mechanisms underlying brain function, including communication between neurons, molecular transport and the activation of immune processes.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>\u201cTwo innovative models for analysing gene-expression data were developed, capable of <strong>capturing long-range interactions between genes<\/strong> that are activated together in the brain,\u201d comments <strong>Silvia Pellegrini<\/strong>. \u201cThe integration of this information enabled us to identify <strong>hundreds of new genes associated with the disorder and to gain a more precise understanding of the biological mechanisms underlying it<\/strong>. <strong>This approach could also be applied to other complex diseases<\/strong>, helping us better understand how the information contained in DNA influences gene function and disease risk, with the goal of identifying new therapeutic opportunities.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>The study was the result of a broad international collaboration involving universities and research centres across Europe, the United States, Canada, Australia and Brazil. In addition to the University of Pisa and the IMT School for Advanced Studies Lucca, the collaboration included the University of Bari Aldo Moro and the University of Turin \u2014 partners with the University of Pisa in the PRIN 2020 project, one of the study\u2019s funding sources \u2014 as well as the Lieber Institute for Brain Development, Johns Hopkins University, the University of Trento, Kore University of Enna and IRCCS Oasi of Troina.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>The study, published in Nature Genetics, opens new therapeutic perspectives<\/p>\n","protected":false},"featured_media":526768,"menu_order":4,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":[],"tag-notizie-persone":[],"tags_news":[2293,2305],"categorie":[159],"class_list":["post-527396","news","type-news","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","tags_news-department-of-clinical-and-experimental-medicine","tags_news-research-en","categorie-unipinews-en"],"yoast_head":"<!-- This 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