Further evidence for a susceptibility locus on chromosome 10p14-p11 in 72 families with schizophrenia by nonparametric linkage analysis.

Recent reports on potential linkage by Faraone and the NIMH Genetics Initiative-Millennium Schizophrenia Consortium [1997: Am J Med Genet 74:557], and by Straub et al. [1997: Am J Med Genet 74:558], prompted us to study chromosome 10 in a sample of 72 families containing 2 or more affected sibs with schizophrenia for additional evidence of linkage. We obtained highest allele sharing for the two markers D10S582 (61.5% allele sharing, chi2 = 7.6, P = 0.0058) and D10S1423 (59% allele sharing, chi2 = 4.76, P = 0.029). D10S1423 is one of the markers with the highest lod scores in the study of Faraone and the NIMH Genetics Initiative-Millennium Schizophrenia Consortium [1997: Am J Med Genet 74:557]. GENEHUNTER analysis revealed a nonparametric lod score (NPL) of 3.2 (P = 0.0007) for the marker D10S1714, which lies in the same region. Multipoint affected sib-pair lod score analysis (identity by descent) calculated by ASPEX revealed a lod score of 1.72 for all possible sib-pair combinations (107) and of 2.13, when only independent sib-pairs (87) were counted. Our study provides further evidence for a potential susceptibility locus for schizophrenia on chromosome 10p.