Project Summary

Arturas Petronis, M.D., Ph.D. (Independent Investigator 2003) of University of Toronto, hypothesizes that though schizophrenia and bipolar disorder are generally thought to be caused by the interaction of damaged genes and hazardous environmental factors, he believes a third group of factors—epigenetic factors—may be of major importance for normal brain functioning. Epigenetic factors regulate gene activity by either chemical changes in DNA or by the interaction of DNA with certain proteins. Chromosome 22 genes (chr 22) have been implicated in major psychosis, but the data are inconsistent. Epigenetic mechanisms may offer a new framework for evaluating the existing chr 22-related clinical and molecular findings. Dr. Petronis will perform a large scale epigenetic analysis of chr 22 in schizophrenia and bipolar disorder, using microarrays that will allow for performing thousands of measurements in a single experiment. His research may lead to a better understanding of the changes in the regulation of genes and genomes that occur in major psychosis. It may also aid in understanding why the same gene sequence may predispose an individual to schizophrenia or bipolar disorder and in other cases does not, and elucidate the molecular mechanisms of how hazardous environmental factors interact with the genome.

Program Area: MULTIPLE FOCUS AREAS\Bipolar Disorder/Schizophrenia

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