The neurospheres derived from hiPSCs from subjects with schizophrenia with 22q11.2 deletion showed abnormal phenotypes similar to the neurospheres derived from Dgcr8 heterozygous knockout mice.10 Therefore, we focused on DGCR8 in our subsequent analyses. The DGCR8 gene encodes a double-stranded RNA binding protein, an important component of the ‘microprocessor' complex that processes primary forms (pri-forms) to pre-miRNAs that have a hairpin structure, which is further processed by the Dicer complex to produce mature miRNAs.32
