C18orf1 located on chromosome 18p11.2 may confer susceptibility to schizophrenia

The pericentromeric region of chromosome 18, especially 18p11.2, is described as a schizophrenia susceptibility locus. We had previously cloned two novel brain-derived transcripts from this region: the gene for a second human myo-inositol monophosphatase (IMPA2) and a gene of unknown function, C18orf1. Recently, we reported a distortion of transmission of the tandem repeat marker D18S852, embedded in the 3'-untranslated region of C18orf1, in schizophrenia, using a family-based association test. A subsequent case-control study also revealed a significant association between the haplotype constructed from D18S852 and the 6409T>C polymorphism located in C18orf1 and schizophrenia. In the present study, we screened the C18orf1 gene for mutations and identified a novel single nucleotide polymorphism (SNP), -96T>C in exon 2. This SNP showed significant genotypic (P = 0.048) and allelic association (P = 0.005) with schizophrenia in a case-control study. The distributions of haplotypes defined by D18S852 and -96T>C were different between control and schizophrenia groups (P = 0.021). These findings suggest that C18orf1 or a gene nearby may contribute to the overall genetic risk for schizophrenia.