Gene expression microarray analysis on the medial prefrontal cortex of Schnurri-2 knockout and wild-type control mice

Schnurri-2 (Shn-2), an NF-kappa B site-binding protein, tightly binds to the enhancers of major histocompatibility complex (MHC) class I genes and inflammatory cytokines, which have been shown to harbor common variant single nucleotide polymorphisms associated with schizophrenia. Shn-2 knockout mice show behavioral abnormalities that strongly resemble those of schizophrenics. We performed gene expression microarray analysis of prefrontal cortices from Shn-2 knockout and wild-type control mice. Prefrontal cortex RNA isolated from six Shn-2 knockout and six control wild-type mice were compared.

Schnurri-2（Shn-2）是一种核因子κB（NF-kappa B）结合位点蛋白，可紧密结合主要组织相容性复合体（MHC）I类基因与炎性细胞因子的增强子区域；已有研究证实，上述区域存在与精神分裂症相关的常见单核苷酸多态性变异。Schnurri-2基因敲除小鼠会表现出与精神分裂症患者高度相似的行为异常。本研究针对Schnurri-2基因敲除小鼠与野生型对照小鼠的前额叶皮层开展基因表达微阵列分析，对分别从6只Schnurri-2基因敲除小鼠与6只野生型对照小鼠体内分离得到的前额叶皮层RNA进行了比对。