The Role of Neuregulin 1 in Schizophrenia: A Bioinformatics Approach

Abstract*Context:* Notwithstanding the great number of studies on the etiology and pathophysiology of schizophrenia, both issues remain far from being fully understood. Schizophrenia seems to be related to several biochemical abnormalities, which point to a multi-factor etiology and pathophysiology, as well as to the perspective that several etiologically diverse disorders might coexist within this nosographic entity. On the other hand, identical twins reveal a high concordance for schizophrenia. From that standpoint, the perspective that structurally-related proteins may play an important and yet non-deterministic role seems attractive. Among these proteins, it is suggestive that Neuregulin 1 exerts a pivotal role. Objective: This paper aims to uncover the most prominent relations that Neuregulin 1 establishes with schizophrenia. *Method:* Several bioinformatical methods are used in order to present: 1. A visual representation of Neuregulin 1’s main molecular pathways, associated with a discussion about their importance to schizophrenia research; 2. A new heatmap of Neuregulin 1 and its receptor’s expression in brain tissues most relevant to the understanding of schizophrenia, created after the development of new R programming scripts (described elsewhere), which facilitate the analysis of gene expression profiles in public datasets; 3. A conceptual map of the literature retrieved using the keywords ‘Neuregulin 1 and human’ in PubMed, followed by a discussion of the most relevant sub-topics. Results: Neuregulin 1 polymorphisms affect several brain tissues and contribute to the etiology and pathophysiology of schizophrenia. Suggestively, Neuregulin 1 partially bridges the 'molecular gap' that schizophrenia establishes in relation to bipolar disorder and Alzheimer disease, which involves genes that affect several brain networks, at the same time that they are highly dependent on noxious environmental variables to be triggered.