Genome-Wide Searches for Bipolar Disorder Genes

Whole-genome linkage and association studies of bipolar disorder are beginning to provide some compelling evidence for the involvement of several chromosomal regions and susceptibility genes in the pathogenesis of bipolar disorder. Developments in genotyping technology and efforts to combine data from different studies have helped in identifying chromosomes 6q16-q25, 13q, and 16p12 as probable susceptibility loci for bipolar disorder and confirmed CACNA1C and ANK3 as susceptibility genes for bipolar disorder. However, a lack of replication is still apparent in the literature. New studies focusing on copy number variants as well as new analytical approaches utilizing pathway analysis offer a new direction in the study of the genetics of bipolar disorder.