Project Summary

Sherry Leonard, Ph.D. (Independent Investigator 2001) of University of Colorado, Denver, Denver, is investigating postmortem brain tissue from normal subjects and those with schizophrenia or bipolar disorder (BD), as well as normal subjects who were smokers or used alcohol using genechip microarray techniques to measure differences in gene expression.  With the recent completion of the DNA sequence for the human genome, all of the genes in a given linkage region can be identified.  In schizophrenia and BD, several genes interact resulting in the disease.  Genetic linkage has identified a number of chromosomal regions linked to each of these mental illnesses, and some may be common to both diseases.  This linkage analysis identifies a region only, not a specific gene.  This study will attempt to identify genes that are expressed differently between the disease state and normal subjects and will also yield information on how the genes are commonly expressed between the two diseases and how they are different.

Program Area: SCHIZOPHRENIA/PSYCHOTIC DISORDERS

Search Again