Fine mapping of candidate regions for bipolar disorder provides strong evidence for susceptibility loci on chromosomes 7q

Abstract

Genomewide scans of bipolar disorder (BP) have not produced consistent linkage findings. Follow-up studies using enlarged samples and enhanced marker density can bolster or refute claims of linkage and pave the way to gene discovery. We conducted linkage and association analyses, using a ∼3-cM density map of 10 candidate regions, in a large BP pedigree sample (865 individuals from 56 pedigrees). The candidate regions were identified in a previous 10-cM genome-wide scan using a subset of this sample (373 individuals from 40 pedigrees). The present sample consists of the expanded original pedigrees ("core" pedigrees) and 16 additional pedigrees. We obtained experiment-wide significant linkage on chromosome 7q34 (LOD score 3.53, P