Increased levels of expression of an NMDARI splice variant in the superiortemporal gyrus in schizophrenia

Expression patterns of mRNAs for the NMDAR1 subunit (NRI) carboxy-terminus isoforms were investigated in postmortem brain tissue using isotopic in sit u hybridization. Three brain regions (superior temporal, middle frontal and visual cortices) were examined in patients with schizophrenia (n = 6) and control subjects (n = 6). A 22% higher level of expression of the NRI isofo rm that contains neither spliced exon was observed in the superior temporal gyrus of patients with schizophrenia compared with controls (p=0.01). No d ifferences were observed in the expression of the other isoforms in the thr ee regions studied. These data suggest that NRI alternative splicing might be abnormal in schizophrenia and reinforce previous findings implicating th e superior temporal gyrus as a site of neural dysfunction in schizophrenia. NeuroReport 11:983-986 (C) 2000 Lippincott Williams & Wilkins.