Scientists have identified 108 specific locations in the human genome linked to schizophrenia in the world's largest genetic study of the disease.
Examining a total of 80,000 samples from schizophrenia patients and healthy volunteers worldwide, the study found 108 specific locations in the human genome linked to schizophrenia, 83 of which were entirely new.
"We've been able to detect genetic risk factors on a huge and unprecedented scale and shed new light on the biological cause of the condition," according to Professor Michael O'Donovan from Cardiff University's Medical Research Council Centre for Neuropsychiatric Genetics and Genomics, who led the study.
The discovery is the result of several years of work by the Schizophrenia Working Group of the Psychiatric Genomics Consortium, an international, multi-institutional collaboration of over 300 scientists in 35 countries worldwide.
The findings also point to new biological mechanisms and pathways. For example, as the authors had expected, the study implicates genes expressed in brain tissue but it also found genes associated with schizophrenia were particularly active in the immune system.
"Detecting biological risk factors on this scale shows that schizophrenia can be tackled by the same approaches that have already transformed outcomes for people with other diseases," said Professor Sir Michael Owen, Director of Cardiff University's MRC Centre for Neuropsychiatric Genetics and Genomics.
"We now believe they can also do so for schizophrenia which has, until now, been so poorly understood," he added.
Schizophrenia is a debilitating psychiatric disorder that affects more than 24 million people worldwide.
The disorder is very variable but is characterised by a combination of hallucinations, delusions such as paranoia, mood changes, apathy and social withdrawal amongst others, and often emerges in the teens and early 20s.
"The wealth of new findings provides a huge number of launch pads for understanding the disease and will kick-start the stalled process of developing new treatments for patients and their families who are even now still stigmatised and blamed for the condition," O'Donovan said.
"The key challenge now is to translate these new insights into the biological basis of schizophrenia, into new diagnostic tools and novel treatments for patients and finally put an end to the 60-year-wait for new treatments for sufferers worldwide," he added.
