Project Summary

Roel A. Ophoff, Ph.D. (Young Investigator 2005) of the University of California at Los Angeles, plans to study how a certain pattern of genomic rearrangement in human chromosomes may be a mechanism for behavioral traits and, therefore, may play a role in psychiatric illness. Recently, Dr. Ophoff identified a specific pattern of large blocks of duplicated sequences surrounding two known inversion polymorphisms and then found more than 230 distinct regions in the genome with similar features. These findings suggest a potential high degree of genomic plasticity. The widespread distribution of these features in the human genome suggests the presence a new type of common genetic variation that may be associated with common (behavioral) traits. In this study, Dr. Ophoff proposes to investigate two regions associated with schizophrenia susceptibility that also harbor complex higher order genomic structure predisposing to inversion polymorphisms. These regions are located at chromosome 22qll and 10ql2. It is Dr. Ophoff’s goal to examine whether common genomic variation at these sites play a role in schizophrenia susceptibility.

Program Area: SCHIZOPHRENIA/PSYCHOTIC DISORDERS\Schizophrenia\Molecular

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