BrainSeq: Neurogenomics to Drive Novel Target Discovery for Neuropsychiatric Disorders

This ambitious project seeks to characterize the genetic and epigenetic regulation of multiple facets of transcription in distinct brain regions across the human lifespan in samples of major neuropsychiatric disorders and controls. Initially focused on schizophrenia and mood disorders, the goal of this consortium is to elucidate the underlying molecular mechanisms of genetic associations with the goal of identifying novel therapeutic targets. The consortium currently consists of seven pharmaceutical companies and a not-for-profit medical research institution working as a precompetitive team to generate and analyze publicly available archival brain genomic data related to neuropsychiatric illness.

RNA-seq Datasets

Phase 1: DLPFC polyA+ RNA-seq on 738 subjects spanning the lifespan and three main psychiatric diagnostic groups (Schizophrenia, Major Depression Disorder, and Bipolar Disorder.

• eQTL Browser
• Schizophrenia Browser
• Development Browser

Phase 2: DLPFC and Hippocampus RiboZero RNA-seq subjects spanning the lifespan and adult patients with schizophrenia.

• eQTL Browser
• Development Browser

Publications

BrainSeq: A Human Brain Genomics Consortium. BrainSeq: Neurogenomics to Drive Novel Target Discovery for Neuropsychiatric Disorders. Neuron. 2015 Dec 16;88(6):1078-83. doi: 10.1016/j.neuron.2015.10.047. PMID: [26687217]

Birnbaum R, Jaffe AE, Chen Q, Shin JH, BrainSeq Consortium, Kleinman JE, Hyde TM, Weinberger DR. Investigating the neuro-immunogenic architecture of schizophrenia. Mol Psychiatry. 2017 May 9. PMID: [26687217]

Jaffe AE, Straub RE, Shin JH, Tao R, Gao Y, Collado-Torres L, Kam-Thong T, Xi HS, Quan J, Chen Q, Colantuoni C, Ulrich B, Maher BJ, Deep-Soboslay A, The BrainSeq Consortium, Cross A, Brandon NJ, Leek JT, Hyde TM, Kleinman JE, Weinberger DR. Developmental And Genetic Regulation Of The Human Cortex Transcriptome In Schizophrenia. Nature Neuroscience. 2018 July 26. [DOI: 10.7303/syn12299750.]

Collado-Torres L, Burke EE, Peterson A, Shin JH, Straub RE, Rajpurohit A, Semick SA, Ulrich WS, BrainSeq Consortium, Valencia C, Tao R, Deep-Soboslay A, Hyde TM, Kleinman JE, Weinberger DR, Jaffe AE. Regional heterogeneity in gene expression, regulation and coherence in hippocampus and dorsolateral prefrontal cortex across development and in schizophrenia. bioRxiv, DOI 10.1101/426213. 2018. Pre-print URL.