AGRF participates in schizophrenia study
Friday, 26 April, 2002
The Australian Genome Research Facility (AGRF) has played a crucial role in a major international study on the genetic causes of schizophrenia.
The study, which was published in the April 26 issue of Science, failed to find any evidence of genes linked to schizophrenia on chromosome 1, despite previous evidence of a linkage. Over 1900 individuals were genotyped as part of the study.
Dr John Barlow, Divisional Manager for the AGRF's Melbourne node, said that the AGRF was responsible for most of the genetic analysis performed in the study.
"It shows that the AGRF is able to provide high quality genetic analysis to a diverse group of researchers," he said.
"They chose us for our reputation," Barlow said, explaining that previous work performed for some of the study participants demonstrated the AGRF's ability to do the genotyping consistently well.
According to Barlow, the study took the AGRF three months to do, and provided several hundred thousand data points.
He explained that genotyping involves comparisons of the DNA from individuals who have the disease with DNA from relatives who don't have the disease, in order to find the genes associated with the disease.
In this case, a large region of chromosome 1, covering 16 microsatellite markers, was genotyped.
Barlow said that although the study did not find any evidence of major schizophrenia susceptibility genes on chromosome 1, the finding was significant anyway.
"Its an important thing to find out. Now the consortium has to focus on other regions," he said, explaining that other suspected loci for schizophrenia genes were found on several chromosomes.
"The AGRF is involved in these studies as well," Barlow added.
Dr Kelly Ewen-White, one of three Australian authors on the paper, was the co-ordinator of the AGRF genotyping effort. Professor Bryan Mowry of the Queensland Centre for Schizophrenia Research and Marilyn Walters of Queensland Institute for Medical Research were also among the authors.
Further information: Levinson, D.F. et al, "No Major Schizophrenia Locus Detected on Chromosome 1q in a Large Multicenter Sample", Science Apr 26 2002: 739-741
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