Abstract
Virtually all psychiatric traits are genetically complex. This article discusses the
genetics of complex traits in psychiatry. The complexity is accounted for by numerous
factors, including multiple risk alleles, epistasis, and epigenetic effects such as
methylation. Risk alleles can individually be common or rare, and can include, for
example, single nucleotide polymorphisms and copy number variants that are transmitted
or are new mutations, and other kinds of variation. Many different kinds of variation
can be important for trait risk, either together in various proportions or as different
factors in different subjects. Until more recently, approaches to complex traits were
limited, and consequently only a few variants, usually of individually minor effect,
were identified. At the present time, a much richer armamentarium exists that includes
the routine application of genome-wide association studies and next-generation high-throughput
sequencing and the combination of this information with other biologically relevant
information, such as expression data. We have also seen the emergence of large meta-analysis
and mega-analysis consortia. These developments are extremely important for psychiatric
genetics, have advanced the field substantially, and promise formidable gains in the
years to come as they are applied more widely.
Keywords
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Article Info
Publication History
Published online: August 13, 2014
Accepted:
August 10,
2014
Received in revised form:
August 1,
2014
Received:
November 12,
2013
Identification
Copyright
© 2015 Society of Biological Psychiatry. Published by Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.
