No evidence that runs of homozygosity are associated with schizophrenia in an Irish genome-wide association dataset

Abstract

Runs of homozygosity (ROH), regions of the genome containing many consecutive homozygous SNPs, may represent two copies of a haplotype inherited from a common ancestor. A rare variant on this haplotype could thus be present in a homozygous and potentially recessive state. To detect rare risk variants for schizophrenia, we performed an ROH analysis in a homogeneous Irish genome wide association study (GWAS) dataset consisting of 1606 cases and 1794 controls. There was no genome-wide excess of ROH in cases compared to controls (p=0.7986). No consensus ROH at individual loci showed association with schizophrenia after genome-wide correction.

Keywords: GWAS; Mutation; Rare variant; Runs of homozygosity; Schizophrenia.