Analysis of Genomic DNA Alterations in Familial Schizophrenia

Persons with schizophrenia experience imaginary voices, visions and disorganized thoughts, and are handicapped when it comes to social life, which is detrimental to the affected individuals and the community. Although the pathogenesis of this mental disease has not been clearly elucidated, much evidence suggests that inheritance is of major etiological importance and multiple genetic components are implicated. Previous linkage studies of familial schizophrenia have led to the successful identification of numerous susceptibility loci covering many of the human chromosomes, including chromosome 1q, 5q, 6p22, 6p24, 8q21, 13q32, 15q13-14 and 22q11, etc. Necessities for further identification of candidate genes involved in familial schizophrenia by taking a genome-wide approach are listed as follows:

1. 1.given that multiple genes are responsible for this disease, it is of critical interest to view the complete molecular profiling of schizophrenia's genome;
2. 2.identification of promising schizophrenia candidate genes by genome-wide scanning will facilitate the development of molecular markers and provide a more objective and effective assessment method in psychotic diagnosis and prognosis;
3. 3.prevention of the onset of this disorder will be improved by early classification of individuals bearing strong genetic loading for schizophrenia as a high risk population;
4. 4.making a breakthrough into the investigation of schizophrenia pathogenesis by the characterization of susceptible genes found by genome-wide exploring.