Genome scans and microarrays converging on genes for schizophrenia.docVIP

/2002/3/4/reviews/1011.1 Minireview Genome scans and microarrays: converging on genes for schizophrenia? Nigel M Williams, Michael C O?Donovan and Michael J Owen Address: Department of Psychological Medicine, Neuropsychiatric Genetics Unit, University of Wales College of Medicine, Cardiff, C$14 4XN, UK. Correspondence: Nigel M Williams. E-mail: Williamsnm@cf.ac.uk Published: 27 March 2002 GenomeBiology 2002, 3(4):reviews1011.1–1011.5 The electronic version of this article is the complete one and can be found online at /2002/3/4/reviews/1011 ? BioMed Central Ltd (Print ISSN 1465-6906; Online ISSN 1465-6914) Abstract Systematic genome-wide scans to date have shown that genes of major effect are not common causes of schizophrenia, but independent linkage studies looking for schizophrenia susceptibility genes are converging on a number of key chromosomal locations. Microarray expression analysis may identify new candidate genes and pathways, and a number of intriguing preliminary findings have already been reported. Schizophrenia is a severe and debilitating mental disorder Systematic genome-wide linkage scans characterized by profound disturbances of cognition, To date, the majority of systematic genome-wide scans for schizophrenia-linked genes have focused on large pedi- emotion and social functioning. The risk of developing it in a lifetime (the lifetime morbid risk) is surprisingly uniform, at slightly less than 1%, across different populations and differ- grees containing multiple affected individuals. This approach has been successful in identifying highly pene- trant disease alleles for common disorders such as breast cancer, non-insulin-dependent diabetes and Alzheimer?s disease [3-5]. Unfortunately it seems that families that clearly have segregating schizophrenia alleles with large effects are, at best, extremely rare and quite possibly non- existent. But several loci