| Summary: | A better understanding of dopaminergic gene expression will inform future treatment options for many different neurologic and psychiatric conditions. Here, we utilized the National Institutes of Health’s Genotype-Tissue Expression project (GTEx) dataset to investigate genotype by expression associations in seven dopamine pathway genes (<i>ANKK1</i>, <i>DBH</i>, <i>DRD1</i>, <i>DRD2</i>, <i>DRD3</i>, <i>DRD5</i>, and <i>SLC6A3</i>) in and across four human brain tissues (prefrontal cortex, nucleus accumbens, substantia nigra, and hippocampus). We found that age alters expression of <i>DRD1</i> in the nucleus accumbens and prefrontal cortex, <i>DRD3</i> in the nucleus accumbens, and <i>DRD5</i> in the hippocampus and prefrontal cortex. Sex was associated with expression of <i>DRD5</i> in substantia nigra and hippocampus, and <i>SLC6A3</i> in substantia nigra. We found that three linkage disequilibrium blocks of SNPs, all located in <i>DRD2</i>, were associated with alterations in expression across all four tissues. These demographic characteristic associations and these variants should be further investigated for use in screening, diagnosis, and future treatment of neurological and psychiatric conditions.
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