May 15, 2012

expert reaction to study of the genetics of schizophrenia

A study mapping the genes and biological pathways involved in schizophrenia, suggesting that there is much more consistency in the genes and biological pathways involved in schizophrenia across populations than previously appreciated, was published in the journal Molecular Psychiatry.

Peter Liddle, Professor of Translational Neuroimaging, University of Nottingham, said:

“This analysis combines information from many types of study in a systematic manner and demonstrates that a consistent understanding of the nature of schizophrenia is emerging. However the total pool of evidence suggests that testing of genes alone is unlikely to provide a reliable diagnosis in an individual case.”

Dr Diana Prata, NIHR Post-Doctoral Fellow, Department of Psychosis Studies, Institute of Psychiatry, said:

“The main innovative step forward in this study is the demonstration that rather than looking at genetic differences in isolation, combining the genetic differences found between people with schizophrenia with healthy individuals at the molecular, cellular, systems and animal model levels acquired over the last decades is the right way to go if we want to understand such a complex illness.

“By doing this for the first time, the authors have put forward a new test to distinguish between schizophrenics and healthy individuals just by looking into their genes.

“Its application in the psychiatrist’s clinic would be welcomed. However, that is still far off because, with this test, the proportion of positive results that are accurate is still very low: ~50% in the European ethnicity, albeit higher in African-Americans (~80%), not to mention the large amount of cases that would go undetected with this test in both ethnic groups (50-70%).”

‘Convergent functional genomics of schizophrenia: from comprehensive understanding to genetic risk prediction’ by Ayalew, M. et al., published in Molecular Psychiatry on Tuesday 15th May.