The largest study ever undertaken into the genetic basis of mental illnesses has found more than 100 genes that play some kind of role in the development of schizophrenia – one of the most common of the serious psychiatric disorders.
Such work could eventually point to new treatments, although they are many years away. Already, the new results provide the first hard genetic evidence to bolster a theory connecting the immune system to the disease.
More than 100 researchers from around the world collaborated in the biggest-ever genomic mapping of schizophrenia, for which scientists had previously uncovered only about a couple of dozen risk-related genes.
The study included the genetic codes of more than 150,000 people — nearly 37,000 of them diagnosed with the disease. Researchers found 108 genetic markers for risk of getting the disease, 83 of them not previously reported. And scientists say there are still likely more to be found.
“It’s a genetic revelation; schizophrenia has been a mystery,” said study co-author Steve McCarroll, director of genetics for the Broad Institute of MIT and Harvard. “Results like this give you things to work on. It takes it out of the zone of guesses about which genes are relevant.”
Agencies/Canadajournal
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