“The Schizophrenias”: Crossing Genomics with “Phenomics” Produces a Better Understanding

The rather meager scientific yields of genome-wide association studies (GWASs) in schizophrenia have been partly attributed to the heterogeneity of the disorder and to different diagnostic procedures. To address these concerns, investigators analyzed genomic and detailed, interview-based, clinical data from a GWAS and from two independent, well-characterized replication datasets.

Disregarding clinical status, the researchers identified all independent sets of interacting single-nucleotide polymorphisms (SNP sets) across both case and control groups (4196 cases and 3827 controls) and tested each SNP set for associations with schizophrenia. The researchers calculated that 98 SNP sets accounted for 90% of cases (schizophrenia risk, >66%); 42 ha…