Chromosomes 12 and 16 Workshop

Recent linkage results independently derived from a large French Canadian p edigree and Danish kindreds coupled with supportive data from other studies provide compelling evidence for a bipolar disorder susceptibility locus on chromosome 12q23-q24, The idea is further strengthened by the finding that Darier's disease, which maps to this region, has been shown to cosegregate with affective disorder in a family. This linkage finding, however, was no t supported in other independent genome scans. On chromosome 16, bipolar fa milies from Denmark exhibited suggestive linkage with D16S510, on 16p13, Mu ltipoint nonparametric analysis on the NIMH Genetics Initiative bipolar ped igrees yielded increased allele sharing that maximized similar to 18 cM pro ximal to the latter locus. In contrast, evidence of linkage was not detecte d in other panels of bipolar families that were presented. At 16p13, a maxi mum multipoint lod score of 4 for a latent class-derived phenotype that has aspects of alcohol dependence was found in a genome scan of 105 families f rom the Collaborative Study of the Genetics of Alcoholism, identifying a po tential vulnerability locus. Am. J. Med, Genet, (Neuropsychiatr. Genet,) 88 : 255-259, 1999, Published 1999 Wiley-Liss, Inc.dagger.