Note to users. If you're seeing this message, it means that your browser cannot find this page's style/presentation instructions -- or possibly that you are using a browser that does not support current Web standards. Find out more about why this message is appearing, and what you can do to make your experience of our site the best it can be.

Sci. Signal., 29 April 2008
Vol. 1, Issue 17, p. ec149
[DOI: 10.1126/stke.117ec149]

EDITORS' CHOICE

Neurobiology Genetics of Schizophrenia

Barbara R. Jasny

Science, AAAS, Washington, DC 20005, USA

Although complex disorders such as schizophrenia have a heritable component, identifying the genetic components associated has been very difficult. Walsh et al. found that multiple, individually rare, structural mutations (genomic microdeletions and -duplications) occurred more frequently in 150 individuals with schizophrenia than in controls. The enrichment was more than threefold among schizophrenia cases generally and more than fourfold among schizophrenia cases with onset by age 18. The genes disrupted by the genomic breakpoints of mutations in the schizophrenia patients were not random but were disproportionately members of pathways controlling neuronal signaling and brain development.

T. Walsh, J. M. McClellan, S. E. McCarthy, A. M. Addington, S. B. Pierce, G. M. Cooper, A. S. Nord, M. Kusenda, D. Malhotra, A. Bhandari, S. M. Stray, C. F. Rippey, P. Roccanova, V. Makarov, B. Lakshmi, R. L. Findling, L. Sikich, T. Stromberg, B. Merriman, N. Gogtay, P. Butler, K. Eckstrand, L. Noory, P. Gochman, R. Long, Z. Chen, S. Davis, C. Baker, E. E. Eichler, P. S. Meltzer, S. F. Nelson, A. B. Singleton, M. K. Lee, J. L. Rapoport, M.-C. King, J. Sebat, Rare structural variants disrupt multiple genes in neurodevelopmental pathways in schizophrenia. Science 320, 539-543 (2008). [Abstract] [Full Text]

Citation: B. R. Jasny, Genetics of Schizophrenia. Sci. Signal. 1, ec149 (2008).

To Advertise     Find Products

Science Signaling. ISSN 1937-9145 (online), 1945-0877 (print). Pre-2008: Science's STKE. ISSN 1525-8882