SCHIZOPHRENIA AND THE ANDROGEN RECEPTOR GENE - REPORT OF A SIBSHIP SHOWING CO-SEGREGATION WITH REIFENSTEIN SYNDROME BUT NO EVIDENCE FOR LINKAGE IN 23 MULTIPLY AFFECTED FAMILIES

Crow et al, [1993: Am J Med Genet (Neuro-psychiatr Genet) 48:1591-160] have reported excess sharing of alleles by male sibling pairs with sc hizophrenia, at a triplet repeat marker within the androgen receptor g ene, indicating that mutations at or near this gene may be a risk fact or for males, In this report, we describe a pair of male siblings conc ordant for both schizophrenia and Reifenstein syndrome, which is cause d by a mutation in this gene, This provides support for the hypothesis that the androgen receptor may contribute to liability to develop sch izophrenia, Because of this, we have examined a collection of 23 pedig rees multiply affected by schizophrenia for linkage to the androgen re ceptor, We have found no evidence for linkage by both the LOD score an d affected sibling-pair methods, under a range of genetic models with a broad and narrow definition of phenotype, and when families with mal e-to-male transmission are excluded, However, because of the small num ber of informative male-male pairs in our sample, we cannot confirm or refute the excess allele sharing for males reported by Crow. (C) 1995 Wiley-Liss, Inc.