• Murphy, K. C.
• Toncheva, D.
• Odonovan, Michael
• Tzwetkova, R.
• Stambolova, S. M.
• Thapar, A.
• Williams, N. M.
• Owen, M. J.
• Nikolov, I.
• Norton, N.
• Williams, H. J.
• Kirov, G.
• Ivanov, D.

Abstract

<jats:sec><jats:title>Background</jats:title><jats:p>Velo-cardio-facial syndrome (VCFS) is associated with interstitial deletions of chromosome 22q11. About 30% of patients with VCFS have psychosis, and the rate of these deletions in schizophrenia has been reported to be about 1%. Even higher rates of VCFS deletions have been reported for childhood-onset schizophrenia.</jats:p></jats:sec><jats:sec><jats:title>Aims</jats:title><jats:p>To test the hypothesis that there is an increased rate of VCFS among patients with early-onset psychosis (age at onset &lt; 18 years). We screened 192 early-onset patients and 329 patients with adult-onset schizophrenia.</jats:p></jats:sec><jats:sec><jats:title>Method</jats:title><jats:p>We genotyped the patients and 444 healthy controls for hemizygosity of five microsatellite markers and one single nucleotide polymorphism that map to the 22q11-deleted region.</jats:p></jats:sec><jats:sec><jats:title>Results</jats:title><jats:p>One patient had a VCFS deletion, confirmed with semi-quantitative polymerase chain reaction. None of the controls showed a pattern of genotypes consistent with hemizygosity.</jats:p></jats:sec><jats:sec><jats:title>Conclusions</jats:title><jats:p>VCFS may be less frequent among patients with psychosis than previously suggested; this rate is not increased among early-onset patients.</jats:p></jats:sec>

Topics

• impedance spectroscopy
• laser emission spectroscopy
• interstitial
• size-exclusion chromatography