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A recent genome-wide association study in patients with panic disorder (PD) identified a risk haplotype consisting of two single-nucleotide polymorphisms (SNPs) (rs7309727 and rs11060369) located in intron 3 of TMEM132D to be associated with PD in three independent samples. Now we report a subsequent confirmation study using five additional PD case-control samples (n = 1670 cases and n 2266 controls) assembled as part of the Panic Disorder International Consortium (PanIC) study for a total of 2678 cases and 3262 controls in the analysis. In the new independent samples of European ancestry (EA), the association of rs7309727 and the risk haplotype rs7309727-rs11060369 was, indeed, replicated, with the strongest signal coming from patients with primary PD, that is, patients without major psychiatric comorbidities (n 1038 cases and n 2411 controls). This finding was paralleled by the results of the meta-analysis across all samples, in which the risk haplotype and rs7309727 reached P-levels of P = 1.4e-8 and P = 1.1e-8, respectively, when restricting the samples to individuals of EA with primary PD. In the Japanese sample no associations with PD could be found. The present results support the initial finding that TMEM132D gene contributes to genetic susceptibility for PD in individuals of EA. Our results also indicate that patient ascertainment and genetic background could be important sources of heterogeneity modifying this association signal in different populations.
Parent of origin imprints on the genome have been implicated in the regulation of neural cell type differentiation. The ability of human parthenogenetic (PG) embryonic stem cells (hpESCs) to undergo neural lineage and cell type-specific differentiation is undefined. We determined the potential of hpESCs to differentiate into various neural subtypes. Concurrently, we examined DNA methylation and expression status of imprinted genes. Under culture conditions promoting neural differentiation, hpESC-derived neural stem cells (hpNSCs) gave rise to glia and neuron-like cells that expressed subtype-specific markers and generated action potentials. Analysis of imprinting in hpESCs and in hpNSCs revealed that maternal-specific gene expression patterns and imprinting marks were generally maintained in PG cells upon differentiation. Our results demonstrate that despite the lack of a paternal genome, hpESCs generate proliferating NSCs that are capable of differentiation into physiologically functional neuron-like cells and maintain allele-specific expression of imprinted genes. Thus, hpESCs can serve as a model to study the role of maternal and paternal genomes in neural development and to better understand imprinting-associated brain diseases.