This is a cost-effective method of performing GWASs and has proved to be effective in identifying disease genes (eg, refs 31,32). However, due to errors in DNA quantification, this method is less sensitive than individual genotyping and has less power. Furthermore, the evaluation of data is limited to the study of (estimated) allele frequencies at the level of individual SNPs. This method does Inhibitors,research,lifescience,medical not detect the effect of haplotypes, interactions between SNPs, or the effects of genotypes that do not show differences in allele frequencies. The first individual-genotyping-based GWAS of schizophrenia involved a very small sample of 178 cases and 144 Akt inhibitor controls.29 The best hit was for a variant

near the colony-stimulating factor-2 Inhibitors,research,lifescience,medical receptor alpha (CSF2RA) gene, but this did not achieve genome-wide significance.29 The second GWAS of this type included 738 patients and 733 controls. Although a few signals coincided with genomic regions that had been implicated in previous linkage studies of schizophrenia, this study found no genome-wide Inhibitors,research,lifescience,medical significant association.30 O’Donovan et al initially performed a GWAS using a moderately sized patient sample (n=479). They then performed

a follow-up study of 12 markers with a P value ≤ 10-5 in a much larger sample to enhance the statistical power.25 Strong evidence for replication was obtained for 3 of these 12 markers (P ≤ 5 x 10-4), although the best supported variant Inhibitors,research,lifescience,medical still failed to achieve genome-wide significance (Table I) . The highest-ranking SNP identified in this study is located in an intron of the zinc finger protein 804A gene (ZNF804A), a putative transcription factor which had never been implicated previously in the risk for schizophrenia. The case sample was Inhibitors,research,lifescience,medical then extended to include bipolar patients. The P value for the total sample surpassed the level of genome-wide significance (P=9 x 10-9). The association between ZNF804A and schizophrenia has recently been replicated by the International Schizophrenia Consortium,24

and ZNF804A is therefore a promising susceptibility gene for schizophrenia. A recent imaging genetics study of ZNF804A risk genotypes has provided evidence in support of these genetic findings. This study demonstrated that healthy carriers of ZNF804A risk genotypes display pronounced genedosage-dependent alterations in functional coupling between the hippocampus and the dorsolateral prefrontal cortex (DLPFC) across the however two hemispheres, which mirrors findings in patients.33 Table I Published genome-wide association studies (GWASs) for schizophrenia.21-30,32 The number of variants investigated, the best associated single-nucleotide polymorphism(s)-SNP(s) – found and the gene(s) containing the SNP(s), the corresponding Pvalue(s), … Three recent multicenter studies have provided important insights. The initial findings of these three studies failed to surpass the level of genome-wide significance.