Nadine Norton

..Three studies have previously reported data that were interpreted by the authors as supportive of association between schizophrenia and polymorphisms in the gene encoding the metabotropic glutamate receptor GRM3...

..In this review we examine and summarize these findings in various neuropsychiatric phenotypes...

..Examination of our own data and those of other groups leads us to conclude that overall, the evidence for association of AKT1 as a susceptibility gene for schizophrenia is weakly positive, but not yet convincing...

..This paper reviews recent molecular genetic studies of schizophrenia and evaluates claims implicating specific genes as susceptibility loci...

..Variation at the DAOA/G30 locus has been described to be associated with both schizophrenia and bipolar disorder, but there is little consistency between studies of the tested polymorphisms or variants showing association...

..Our data provide strong convergent evidence that variation in OLIG2 confers susceptibility to schizophrenia alone and as part of a network of genes implicated in oligodendrocyte function...

..The authors examined these hypotheses...

..However, it is unclear whether the observed changes in the schizophrenic brain are primary or secondary...

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..At present there are no genome-wide significant linkage results for these phenotypes, but a number of suggestive findings warrant further investigation...

..Genetic variations might modify associations between schizophrenia and cannabis or tobacco use...

..Follow-up of this region should use samples enriched for cases of schizoaffective disorder. Our findings have similar implications for the search for genetic variation on chromosome 22q11 that influences susceptibility to psychosis...

..Meta-analysis provided strongest evidence for association around ZNF804A (P = 1.61 x 10(-7)) and this strengthened when the affected phenotype included bipolar disorder (P = 9.96 x 10(-9))...

..However, other explanations are possible, and further analyses will be required to clarify the correct functional mechanism...

..Our data, therefore, do not support the hypothesis that genetic variation in MAOA and COMT is involved individually or in combination in the etiology of schizophrenia...

..The Zinc Finger Protein 804A gene (ZNF804A) has been implicated in schizophrenia susceptibility by several genome-wide association studies. ZNF804A is brain expressed but of unknown function...

..Although the original report was highly suggestive, a limitation was that the study was conducted on rather small samples...

..The ECM glycosaminoglycan hyaluronan (HA) influences TGF-b1 generation and can modulate its signal transduction activity; renal HA is synthesised by HA synthases HAS2 and HAS3...

..2 and schizophrenia (P = 0.026). This study confirms the involvement of rare CNVs in the pathogenesis of schizophrenia and contributes to the growing list of specific CNVs that are implicated...

..These results fail to support the theory that functional polymorphisms within the MAOA, MAOB, or COMT genes, as determinants of catecholamine enzymatic activity, are risk factors for aggressive behavior...

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..Both genes have been affected by CNVs in patients with autism and mental retardation, but neither has been previously implicated in SZ...

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..SLC1A3 is thus both a functional and positional candidate gene for ADHD...

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..Here, we consider the main points in study design, and illustrate the application of pooling using psychiatric phenotypes as an example...

..No copy number variations were found for any of the genes in any samples. Our data suggests that more reliable methods need to be used to validate the existence of CNVs before full scale association studies are carried out...

..It will be important to identify the phenotype associated with the loss of the PCDHGA8 gene...

..Our assay conditions are generalisable, universal, robust and, therefore, for the first time, permit high-throughput association analysis at a realistic cost...

..08) and chromosome 9 (max LOD = 3.34). The previously reported genome-wide linkage of AD to chromosome 10 was not influenced by any of the covariates studied...

..We thus present a comprehensive resource for mutation detection screening of all HAS exons and/or linkage analysis of each HAS gene in a variety of disorders for which they are attractive candidates...

..If schizophrenia susceptibility genes are present on chromosome 1q, their population-wide genetic effects are likely to be small...

..By controlling the error rates in the absence of knowledge of the appropriate SNP-specific correction factors, each approach enhances the performance of DNA pooling, while considerably streamlining the method by reducing time and cost...

..0, 95% CI = 1.09, 3.5), and TDT analysis indicated a statistical trend toward association. Our findings highlight the importance of phenotype definition and the need for the MAOA VNTR to be further examined...

..Yet, similar to other SCZ candidate genes, studies have been inconsistent with respect to the associated alleles...

..05). In women, no significant differences were found. The present results support the involvement of the MAOA gene in men with schizophrenia in the investigated Swedish population but should be interpreted with caution until replicated...

..We conclude that the structure of this MAOA promoter region does not have a large impact on the expression of personality characteristics in the present Swedish population...

..Of the seven markers we tested in family-based and case control samples, the only nominally positive association we found was with the 167 bp allele of marker D10S1217 (chi-square=7.11, P=0.045, df=1)...