Transcriptome Sequencing Reveals the Potential Mechanisms of Modified Electroconvulsive Therapy in Schizophrenia

OBJECTIVE: Schizophrenia (SCZ) is one of the most common and severe mental disorders. Modified electroconvulsive therapy (MECT) is the most effective therapy for all kinds of SCZ, and the underlying molecular mechanism remains unclear. This study is aim to detect the molecule mechanism by constructing the transcriptome dataset from SCZ patients treated with MECT and health controls (HCs). METHODS: Transcriptome sequencing was performed on blood samples of 8 SCZ (BECT: before MECT; AECT: after MECT) and 8 HCs, weighted gene co-expression network analysis (WGCNA) was used to cluster the different expression genes, enrichment and protein-protein interaction (PPI) enrichment analysis were used to detect the related pathways. RESULTS: Three gene modules (black, blue and turquoise) were significantly associated with MECT, enrichment analysis found that the long-term potentiation pathway was associated with MECT. PPI enrichment p-value of black, blue, turquoise module are 0.00127, <1×10(-16) and 1.09×10(-13), respectively. At the same time, EP300 is a key node in the PPI for genes in black module, which got from the transcriptome sequencing data. CONCLUSION: It is suggested that the long-term potentiation pathways were associated with biological mechanism of MECT.