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Researchers are increasingly finding large (>500 kilobase), rare copy number variations (CNVs) in patients with schizophrenia and those with various developmental disorders, including autism (e.g., JW Psychiatry Oct 26 2009). To identify smaller CNVs, investigators genotyped 8290 schizophrenia patients and 7431 healthy controls.
Four regions with CNVs in genes, 22q11.2, 16p11.2, 15q13.3, and 7q36 (the region for the neuropeptide receptor gene VIPR2), were significantly overrepresented in schizophrenia patients. The finding for VIPR2 — microduplications found in 29 schizophrenia patients versus 2 controls, a significant difference — was novel. VIPR2 encodes a G-protein-coupled receptor in several brain regions (e.g., hippocampus, amygdala, su…