RESEARCH ARTICLE Altered Gene Expression in Schizophrenia: Findings from Transcriptional Signatures in

Background Whole-genome expression studies in the peripheral tissues of patients affected by schizo-phrenia (SCZ) can provide new insight into the molecular basis of the disorder and innova-tive biomarkers that may be of great utility in clinical practice. Recent evidence suggests that skin fibroblasts could represent a non-neural peripheral model useful for investigating molecular alterations in psychiatric disorders. Methods Amicroarray expression study was conducted comparing skin fibroblast transcriptomic pro-files from 20 SCZ patients and 20 controls. All genes strongly differentially expressed were validated by real-time quantitative PCR (RT-qPCR) in fibroblasts and analyzed in a sample of peripheral blood cell (PBC) RNA from patients (n = 25) and controls (n = 22). To evaluate the specificity for SCZ, alterations in gene expression were tested in additional samples of fibroblasts and PBCs RNA from Major Depressive Disorder (MDD) (n = 16; n = 21, respec-tively) and Bipolar Disorder (BD) patients (n = 15; n = 20, respectively)