Familial and Functional Study of Genetic Variants Identified in People With Schizophrenia, Bipolar Disorder, Autism Spectrum Disorder or Resistant Depression

Genetic analyses conducted on patient with psychiatric disorders assessed at the expert centres resulted in the identific action of genetic variants associated with psychiatric disorders (Courtois, 2020). These data require further genetic and functional analyses. The first objective of this study is to investigate the disease-related inheritance of genetic variants in the families of individuals in whom these variants have been identified. The second objective is to explore the functional consequences of disease-associated genetic variants in patients cells and those of their relatives with and without these variants. The present project aims to enrich existing biocollections with DNA from blood or saliva from relatives of patients identified with genetic variants. In addition, we wish to collect hair follicules from patients with identified genetic variants of interest and their family members who wish to participate in the study. These hair samples with SNA will be used to dedifferentiate the isolated cells into induced pluripotent stem cells (IPSCs), and then to differentiate them into cells expressing the gene of interest, such as neurons or astrocytes, or into more complex systems, such as brain organoids.