Recent research has highlighted the role of complement genes in shaping the microstructure of the brain during early development, and in contributing to common allele risk for Schizophrenia. We hypothesised that common risk variants for schizophrenia within complement genes will associate with structural changes in white matter microstructure within tracts innervating the frontal lobe. Results showed that risk alleles within the complement gene set, but also intergenic alleles, significantly predict axonal density in white matter tracts connecting frontal cortex with parietal, temporal and occipital cortices. Specifically, risk alleles within the Major Histocompatibility Complex region in chromosome 6 appeared to drive these associations. No significant associations were found for the orientation dispersion index. These results suggest that changes in axonal packing - but not in axonal coherence - determined by common risk alleles within the MHC genomic region – including variants related to the Complement system - appear as a potential neurobiological mechanism for schizophrenia.

最近的研究强调了补体基因在早期发育过程中塑造大脑微观结构以及导致精神分裂症常见等位基因风险中的作用。我们假设补体基因内精神分裂症的常见风险变异将与支配额叶的白质微结构的结构变化相关。结果表明，补体基因组中的风险等位基因以及基因间等位基因可以显着预测连接额叶皮质与顶叶、颞叶和枕叶皮质的白质束中的轴突密度。具体来说，6 号染色体主要组织相容性复合体区域内的风险等位基因似乎驱动了这些关联。未发现取向色散指数存在显着关联。这些结果表明，轴突堆积的变化（但不是轴突一致性的变化）由 MHC 基因组区域内的常见风险等位基因（包括与补体系统相关的变异）决定，似乎是精神分裂症的潜在神经生物学机制。