Targeted proteomic analysis of cognitive dysfunction in remitted major depressive disorder: Opportunities of multi-omics approaches towards predictive, preventive, and personalized psychiatry

Abstract

In order to accelerate the understanding of pathophysiological mechanisms and clinical biomarker discovery and in psychiatry, approaches that integrate multiple –omics platforms are needed. We introduce a workflow that investigates a narrowly defined psychiatric phenotype, makes use of the potent and cost-effective discovery technology of gene expression microarrays, applies Weighted Gene Co-Expression Network Analysis (WGCNA) to better capture complex and polygenic traits, and finally explores gene expression findings on the proteomic level using targeted mass-spectrometry (MS) technologies. To illustrate the effectiveness of the workflow, we present a proteomic analysis of peripheral blood..