Bipolar disorder: dominant or recessive on chromosome 5?

The presence of a susceptibility locus for bipolar disorder on chromosome 5p near the dopamine transporter gene has been suggested. We examined 52 bipolar families for linkage to two markers in this region under both dominant and recessive models of inheritance. The purpose of the analyses was to determine the mode of inheritance of this purported bipolar locus. We also ran sensitivity analyses to confirm the reliability of the linkage results. Our results suggest that a bipolar locus inherited in an autosomal dominant fashion may be linked to this region in a subset of families.