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Genetic origins of schizophrenia find common ground

Two differing approaches that are used to study common and rare genetic causes of schizophrenia reveal convergent clues about the biology underlying this complex disorder.
  1. Conrad O. Iyegbe

    1. Conrad O. Iyegbe is at the Icahn School of Medicine at Mount Sinai, New York, New York 10029, USA.

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  2. Paul F. O’Reilly

    1. Paul F. O’Reilly is at the Icahn School of Medicine at Mount Sinai, New York, New York 10029, USA.

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There has long been debate about whether the genetic component of complex disorders, such as schizophrenia, is attributable mainly to rare or common DNA variants1. Two studies in Nature now provide evidence for key roles of both types of variant. In the first study, Trubetskoy et al.2 identified hundreds of common genetic variants that each have a tiny influence on schizophrenia risk. By contrast, in the second, Singh et al.3 discovered a handful of rare variants, each of which have a large effect. Together, these studies show that common and rare genetic causes of illness might often disrupt the same biological processes that lead to disease.

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Nature 604, 433-435 (2022)

doi: https://doi.org/10.1038/d41586-022-00773-5

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Competing Interests

C.O.I. is listed as one of the 500+ co-authors on one of the papers discussed in the News & Views article as a result of generating data for one of the cohorts. This fact is stated at the end of the article text.

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