MOLECULAR GENETIC STUDY OF MANIC DEPRESSION AND SCHIZOPHRENIA

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The Principal Investigator, Dr. Byerley, has moved to the University of California at Irvine but collaborators remain at Utah and patients continue to be evaluated at the GCRC and a very large collection of Epstein-Barr Virus transformed cell lines is maintained in the GCRC Core Laboratory. The principal objective of this study is to identify genes that underlie susceptibility to manic-depressive illness (MDI) and schizophrenia (SCZ). Pedigree ascertainment continues in outbred populations from the United States, Palau, Micronesia and Dagahestan, Russia. Sixteen multiplex MDI pedigrees and 20 multiplex pedigrees with SCZ have been ascertained from the Intermountain West, phenotyping has been completed and over 500 cell lines and DNA stocks have been established. The objective in Palau was to ascertain all cases of schizophrenia and the relatives. Approximately 160 schizophrenics in the isolated population of Palau, Micronesia have been ascertained and DNA and cell lines collected from most. Almost all cases of SCZ in Palau have proven to be familial. The sample collected from Dagahestan has yielded 15 families, nine of which are large multiplex families, each having between 12 and 60 cases of SCZ. Both general linkage analysis and the candidate gene approach are being employed by this study. Many of the results have been published. Both SCZ and MDI are almost certainly complex disorders with multiple contributing genes. Linkage to several loci have been detected in pedigrees from various sources.