SZGR: a comprehensive schizophrenia gene resource

Schizophrenia is a major debilitating psychiatric disorder affecting similar to 1% of the population worldwide. A tremendous amount of effort has been expended in the last two decades to identify genes influencing susceptibility to this disorder. Although there is a strong trend toward integrating data obtained from various genetic studies and their related biological information into a comprehensive resource for many complex diseases, we were unable to find such an effort for schizophrenia or for any other psychiatric disorder yet. In this study, we present Schizophrenia gene resource (SZGR), a comprehensive database with user-friendly web interface. SZGR deposits genetic data from all available sources, including those from association studies, linkage scans, gene expression, literature, gene ontology (GO) annotations, gene networks, cellular and regulatory pathways, as well as microRNAs and their target sites. Moreover, SZGR provides online tools for data browse and search, data integration, custom gene ranking and graphical presentation. This system can be easily applied to other complex diseases, especially to other psychiatric disorders. The SZGR database is available at http://bioinfo.mc.vanderbilt.edu/SZGR/. Molecular Psychiatry (2010) 15, 453-462; doi:10.1038/mp.2009.93