Convergent functional genomics: application to bipolar disorder

The recent development of microarray technologies has made possible the sim ultaneous measurement of mRNA levels for thousands of genes and a new genom ic method termed gene expression profiling. The application of this approac h to animal models or post-mortem tissue provides a powerful tool for the d iscovery of novel genes involved in psychiatric disorders. This approach ha s strengths that are complementary to those of another genomic method for g ene discovery, positional cloning. Microarray technologies and their applic ation to post-mortem tissue and animal models of bipolar disorder are revie wed. A novel approach termed convergent functional genomics, which integrat es gene profiling and positional cloning in order to rapidly identify candi date disease genes, is also described.