Bethesda, Md. – Scientists have provided new insight into how a
gene is related to schizophrenia. In a study to be published in
the August 17 issue of the Journal of Biological Chemistry,
Amanda J. Law, Medical Research Council Fellow and Associate
Professor at the University of Oxford, United Kingdom, and
Visiting Scientist at the National Institutes of Health (NIH),
along with colleagues at NIH describe for the first time a
genetic variation that causes a gene to be overexpressed in the
human brain. These results may provide a new way to design
better drugs to treat schizophrenia. “Although the exact causes
of schizophrenia are yet to be determined, scientists agree that
the disease is in part due to genetic variations,” Law says.
“These variations are not simple to understand because they
don’t directly disturb the function of proteins. In our study,
we identified some clues as to what goes wrong with one of these
DNA variations.” The study was selected as a “Paper of the Week”
by the journal’s editors, me