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Recently evolved human-specific methylated regions are enriched in schizophrenia signals

Overview of attention for article published in BMC Ecology and Evolution, May 2018
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  • In the top 5% of all research outputs scored by Altmetric
  • High Attention Score compared to outputs of the same age (92nd percentile)
  • High Attention Score compared to outputs of the same age and source (86th percentile)

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2 news outlets
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2 blogs
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16 X users

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58 Mendeley
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Title
Recently evolved human-specific methylated regions are enriched in schizophrenia signals
Published in
BMC Ecology and Evolution, May 2018
DOI 10.1186/s12862-018-1177-2
Pubmed ID
Authors

Niladri Banerjee, Tatiana Polushina, Francesco Bettella, Sudheer Giddaluru, Vidar M. Steen, Ole A. Andreassen, Stephanie Le Hellard

Abstract

One explanation for the persistence of schizophrenia despite the reduced fertility of patients is that it is a by-product of recent human evolution. This hypothesis is supported by evidence suggesting that recently-evolved genomic regions in humans are involved in the genetic risk for schizophrenia. Using summary statistics from genome-wide association studies (GWAS) of schizophrenia and 11 other phenotypes, we tested for enrichment of association with GWAS traits in regions that have undergone methylation changes in the human lineage compared to Neanderthals and Denisovans, i.e. human-specific differentially methylated regions (DMRs). We used analytical tools that evaluate polygenic enrichment of a subset of genomic variants against all variants. Schizophrenia was the only trait in which DMR SNPs showed clear enrichment of association that passed the genome-wide significance threshold. The enrichment was not observed for Neanderthal or Denisovan DMRs. The enrichment seen in human DMRs is comparable to that for genomic regions tagged by Neanderthal Selective Sweep markers, and stronger than that for Human Accelerated Regions. The enrichment survives multiple testing performed through permutation (n = 10,000) and bootstrapping (n = 5000) in INRICH (p < 0.01). Some enrichment of association with height was observed at the gene level. Regions where DNA methylation modifications have changed during recent human evolution show enrichment of association with schizophrenia and possibly with height. Our study further supports the hypothesis that genetic variants conferring risk of schizophrenia co-occur in genomic regions that have changed as the human species evolved. Since methylation is an epigenetic mark, potentially mediated by environmental changes, our results also suggest that interaction with the environment might have contributed to that association.

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Mendeley readers

Mendeley readers

The data shown below were compiled from readership statistics for 58 Mendeley readers of this research output. Click here to see the associated Mendeley record.

Geographical breakdown

Country Count As %
Unknown 58 100%

Demographic breakdown

Readers by professional status Count As %
Student > Ph. D. Student 10 17%
Researcher 9 16%
Student > Doctoral Student 6 10%
Student > Bachelor 4 7%
Student > Master 4 7%
Other 6 10%
Unknown 19 33%
Readers by discipline Count As %
Psychology 7 12%
Agricultural and Biological Sciences 7 12%
Biochemistry, Genetics and Molecular Biology 6 10%
Neuroscience 5 9%
Medicine and Dentistry 5 9%
Other 7 12%
Unknown 21 36%
Attention Score in Context

Attention Score in Context

This research output has an Altmetric Attention Score of 35. This is our high-level measure of the quality and quantity of online attention that it has received. This Attention Score, as well as the ranking and number of research outputs shown below, was calculated when the research output was last mentioned on 26 June 2022.
All research outputs
#1,152,740
of 25,382,440 outputs
Outputs from BMC Ecology and Evolution
#270
of 3,714 outputs
Outputs of similar age
#25,036
of 339,382 outputs
Outputs of similar age from BMC Ecology and Evolution
#9
of 69 outputs
Altmetric has tracked 25,382,440 research outputs across all sources so far. Compared to these this one has done particularly well and is in the 95th percentile: it's in the top 5% of all research outputs ever tracked by Altmetric.
So far Altmetric has tracked 3,714 research outputs from this source. They typically receive a lot more attention than average, with a mean Attention Score of 12.5. This one has done particularly well, scoring higher than 92% of its peers.
Older research outputs will score higher simply because they've had more time to accumulate mentions. To account for age we can compare this Altmetric Attention Score to the 339,382 tracked outputs that were published within six weeks on either side of this one in any source. This one has done particularly well, scoring higher than 92% of its contemporaries.
We're also able to compare this research output to 69 others from the same source and published within six weeks on either side of this one. This one has done well, scoring higher than 86% of its contemporaries.