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Viral DNA in the human genome linked to major psychiatric disorders

medicalxpress.com

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Re: Viral DNA in the human genome linked to major psychiatric disorders

#21

Post by AnthonBerg »

fellerts wrote: post #4
AnthonBerg wrote: post #2

For convenience here’s the paper: Integrating human endogenous retroviruses into transcriptome-wide association studies highlights novel risk factors for major psychiatric conditions by Duarte, Pain, Bendall & others: https://www.nature.com/articles/s41467-024-48153-z DOI: https://doi.org/10.1038/s41467-024-48153-z Open-access PDF. (Kudos to the medicalxpress writer for actually linking to the paper.) It seems to be…

Do you blog? I'd love to read more, and I really enjoy your writing style.

I am very glad for your understanding. No, no blog at this time. Noted; humbly.

Re: Viral DNA in the human genome linked to major psychiatric disorders

#22

Post by AnthonBerg »

Sakos wrote: post #3
AnthonBerg wrote: post #2

For convenience here’s the paper: Integrating human endogenous retroviruses into transcriptome-wide association studies highlights novel risk factors for major psychiatric conditions by Duarte, Pain, Bendall & others: https://www.nature.com/articles/s41467-024-48153-z DOI: https://doi.org/10.1038/s41467-024-48153-z Open-access PDF. (Kudos to the medicalxpress writer for actually linking to the paper.) It seems to be…

Very interesting. The paper suggests though that for many of these it's unlikely it's due to an immune response: > It is not clear yet how the expression of the high confidence risk HERVs may play a role in psychiatric disorders. It was previously hypothesised that differential HERV expression in psychiatric cases was likely to be a by-product of immune responses against current or past infections34. Indeed, HERV exp…

Thank you! To me, this is a great example of how to read papers. I think I skimmed that section a couple of times after writing the comment and it didn’t register.

Thank you for making the connection.

Re: Viral DNA in the human genome linked to major psychiatric disorders

#23

Post by heddycrow »

kylebenzle wrote: post #7
fellerts wrote: post #4

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Do you blog? I'd love to read more, and I really enjoy your writing style.

I found that way of writing terribly arrogant and annoying, like a smart 15-year-old.

Takes all kinds. I'm +1 the blog.

Re: Viral DNA in the human genome linked to major psychiatric disorders

#25

Post by greg_V »

AnthonBerg wrote: post #2

For convenience here’s the paper: Integrating human endogenous retroviruses into transcriptome-wide association studies highlights novel risk factors for major psychiatric conditions by Duarte, Pain, Bendall & others: https://www.nature.com/articles/s41467-024-48153-z DOI: https://doi.org/10.1038/s41467-024-48153-z Open-access PDF. (Kudos to the medicalxpress writer for actually linking to the paper.) It seems to be…

The inflammation vs. psychiatric disorders link is very interesting. See also some findings about the gut biome, which is also involved in the process: https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC7830868/

Re: Viral DNA in the human genome linked to major psychiatric disorders

#26

Post by Slava_Propanei »

maratc wrote: post #14

This kind of science leaves me with lots and lots of questions. E.g.: As our understanding of DNA progresses, and we link more and more of it to different traits, will we eventually get into a situation where a swab on the water glass tells potential employer much more than the interview? Or: imagine that in addition to the discovery "viral DNA in the human genome linked to major psychiatric disorders" there's a disc…

[dead]

Re: Viral DNA in the human genome linked to major psychiatric disorders

#27

Post by pyronik19 »

lm28469 wrote: post #15
im3w1l wrote: post #5

So uhm, can/should we start cutting these proviruses(?) out of our genomes? Unintended consequences?

I love humans, we discover a new interesting thing, think we're big boys who understand everything there is to understand and that we can shape things to our will with no adverse consequences That's how we got asbestos in walls, lead in gas/paint, freon, pfas, &c. The same story over and over and over again. But sure go ahead and start slicing our dna, what could possibly go wrong?

And antibiotics, computers, fertilizer, electricity, cars, stem cells, etc

Don't get me wrong, I'm not saying throw caution to the wind, but ludditism also isn't the answer.

Re: Viral DNA in the human genome linked to major psychiatric disorders

#29

Post by AdamN »

im3w1l wrote: post #8
Feuilles_Mortes wrote: post #6

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Definitely not. Current estimates put viral DNA at about 8% of the human genome.

Would it be possible to consider them separately though? Like maybe it will turn out that say 10% of them are beneficial, 65% of them are neutral (either they do nothing at all or a mixture of benefit and harm), and 25% are slightly bad for us (can't be too harmful or we would have already known ig).

'Bad' is notoriously hard to figure out. It might be good for the group to have a few people with major psychiatric disorders even if it's not ideal for that individual or the people who have to directly interact with them.

Re: Viral DNA in the human genome linked to major psychiatric disorders

#30

Post by llamaimperative »

maratc wrote: post #14

This kind of science leaves me with lots and lots of questions. E.g.: As our understanding of DNA progresses, and we link more and more of it to different traits, will we eventually get into a situation where a swab on the water glass tells potential employer much more than the interview? Or: imagine that in addition to the discovery "viral DNA in the human genome linked to major psychiatric disorders" there's a disc…

> E.g.: As our understanding of DNA progresses, and we link more and more of it to different traits, will we eventually get into a situation where a swab on the water glass tells potential employer much more than the interview?

For almost anything that an interview is designed to discover: no. DNA manipulates probabilities of certain things in one direction or another, but then that probability shift is amplified and attenuated through layer after layer of immensely chaotic biological, then psychological, then social processes.

The connection between genetic code and "things we care about" is extremely finicky, with the exceptions being certain types of diseases which emerge much closer to the genetic code than any sort of social behaviors do.

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