Genome-wide association study of multiplex schizophrenia pedigrees.

Objective: The authors used a genome-wide association study (GWAS) of multiply affected families to investigate the association of schizophrenia to common single-nucleotide polymorphisms (SNPs) and rare copy number variants (CNVs).

Method: The family sample included 2,461 individuals from 631 pedigrees (581 in the primary European-ancestry analyses). Association was tested for single SNPs and genetic pathways.

Linkage analysis of plasma dopamine β-hydroxylase activity in families of patients with schizophrenia.

Dopamine β-hydroxylase (DβH) catalyzes the conversion of dopamine to norepinephrine. DβH enters the plasma after vesicular release from sympathetic neurons and the adrenal medulla. Plasma DβH activity (pDβH) varies widely among individuals, and genetic inheritance regulates that variation.

Linkage and association on 8p21.2-p21.1 in schizophrenia.

In the past decade, we and others have consistently reported linkage to a schizophrenia (SZ) susceptibility region on chromosome 8p21. Most recently, in the largest SZ linkage sample to date, a multi-site international collaboration performed a SNP-based linkage scan (~6,000 SNPs; 831 pedigrees; 121 from Johns Hopkins (JHU)), that showed the strongest evidence for linkage in a 1 Mb region of chr 8p21 from rs1561817 to rs9797 (Z(max) = 3.22, P = 0.

Detection of SNP-SNP interactions in trios of parents with schizophrenic children.

Schizophrenia (SZ) is a heritable and complex psychiatric disorder with an estimated worldwide prevalence of about 1%. Research on the risk factors for SZ has thus far yielded few clues to causes, but has pointed to a heterogeneous etiology that likely involves multiple genes and gene-environment interactions. In this manuscript, we apply a novel method (trio logic regression, Li et al.

Familiality of novel factorial dimensions of schizophrenia.

Context: Factor analysis of the signs and symptoms of schizophrenia yields dimensional phenotypes that may relate to underlying genetic variation. Examination of familiality of factor scores can demonstrate whether they are likely to be of use in genetic research.

Objective: To produce a broader set of factorial phenotypes that are tested for familiality including core symptoms of schizophrenia and additional indicators of social, work, and educational dysfunction.