Molecular signatures associated with cognitive deficits in schizophrenia: a study of biopsied olfactory neural epithelium

Cognitive deficit is a key feature of schizophrenia (SZ) and determines functional outcome. Nonetheless, molecular signatures underlying the deficit in neuronal tissues are not well understood. We performed microarray analysis of olfactory epithelium (OE) tissues from SZ and control subjects with their neuropsychological assessment data. Furthermore, we examined gene expression profiles of lymphoblasts for the molecular signatures identified in the OE tissues . We used the following 3 sample sets for the microarray analysis: A) microdisected samples enriched for neuronal layers of OE tissues, B) paired lymphoblast samples , and C) non-paired lymphoblast samples. The first and second sampe sets (A and B) were derived from the same participants, while the third sample set (C) was from participants from another independent cohort.