Identification of PIK3C3 promoter variant associated with bipolar disorder and schizophrenia.

Background: Genes involved in phosphoinositide (PI) lipid metabolism are excellent candidates to consider in the pathogenesis of bipolar disorder (BD) and schizophrenia (SZ). One is PIK3C3, a member of the phosphatidylinositide 3-kinase family that maps closely to markers on 18q linked to both BD and SZ in a few studies.

Methods: The promoter region of PIK3C3 was analyzed for mutations by single-strand conformation polymorphism analysis and sequencing.