The genetics of schizophrenia

Abstract

Research into the etiology of schizophrenia, particularly the possible genetic basis, has never been as interesting and as provocative as in the past three years. Sullivan looks critically at the key research.

Figure 1. Comparison of a Selected Set of Relatively Well-Established Risk Factors for Schizophrenia, Focusing Mainly on Pre- and Antenatal Factors [6] (abbreviations: CNS, central nervous system; depr, depression; Rh, Rhesus)

Figure 2. Summary of Genomewide Linkage Studies of Schizophrenia

The x-axis shows the location on the genome, from the telomere of the short arm of Chromosome 1 to the telomere of the long arm of Chromosome 22 (bottom row) along with 303 band chromosomal staining on the second-to-bottom row. The y-axis shows the 27 primary samples that reported first-stage genome scans for schizophrenia (i.e., excluding fine-mapping or partial reports) along with the results of a meta-analysis including most of the primary samples [12] (studies not included are shown with asterisks). Within each row, the height and color of the bars are proportional to the –log₁₀(P-value), and the width of the bar shows the genomic location implicated by a particular sample. A selected set of candidate genes for schizophrenia are also shown. All genomic locations are per the hg16 build (http://genome.ucsc.edu). The physical positions of an inclusive set of the markers showing the best findings in the primary samples were plotted (assuming a confidence interval of ± 10 cM or, if mapping was uncertain, ± 10 megabases; seven markers from the primary samples did not map).