ANALYSIS OF BIPOLAR DISORDER USING AFFECTED RELATIVES

We have analyzed the GAW10 data from several studies of bipolar affect ive disorder (BPAD) using the software packages SimIBD and SIMWALK2. S imIBD implements a simulation-based affected-pedigree-member (APM) sta tistic, called SimAPM, as well as an APM-like statistic, also called S imIBD, that measures identical-by-descent (IBD) sharing. SIMWALK2 uses Markov chain Monte Carlo techniques to compute several IBD-based stat istics on the degree of marker-allele clustering among all affected re latives. We have found no strong evidence of linkage to either chromos ome 5 or 18. However, we did find that several markers showed p-values less than 0.01 and may deserve further study. (C) 1997 Wiley-Liss, In c.