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Published on: June 15, 2011
Phenotypic variation between parent-offspring trios and non-trios in genetic studies of schizophrenia
Stanley Zammit1, Glyn Lewis, Anita Thapar
1Department of Psychological Medicine, Cardiff University, Heath Park, Cardiff, CF14 4XN, UK. zammits@cardiff.ac.uk
Background:
Phenotypic differences between parent-offspring trios and non-trios have been reported for various psychiatric disorders, and it has been suggested that this may make comparisons of case-control and family-based results for gene-disease association studies inappropriate.
Aims:
To compare phenotypes between trios and non-trios with schizophrenia, and explore possible reasons for differences observed.
Method:
Phenotypes were compared between trios (n=75) and non-trios (n=424) collected as part of a case-control study.
Results:
Differences were observed for most phenotypes investigated, although all were eliminated after adjusting for confounding.
Conclusions:
Confounding, genetic heterogeneity or selection bias could result in differences in case-control and family-based results. However as we discuss, where adequately designed case-control studies are used, gene-disease association results would be incomparable between family-based and case-control studies only if genetic heterogeneity was present. These results do not support the presence of such genetic heterogeneity in schizophrenia.
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