藤田保健卫生大学教授岩田仲生等人采集了日本各地约6600名精神分裂症患者和约1.2万名健康人的染色体样本进行研究。他们发现，一个人如果体内名为“NOTCH4”的基因的单核苷酸多态性是特定的类型，其精神分裂症的发病风险将是正常人的约1.15倍。
精神分裂症患者会出现幻想、幻觉、缺少感情交流、对周围事情不感兴趣等症状。岩田仲生说，希望以此研究结果为契机，弄清病因并找到新的治疗方法。
doi:10.1038/mp.2012.74
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Genetic evidence for association between NOTCH4 and schizophrenia supported by a GWAS follow-up study in a Japanese population
M Ikeda, B Aleksic, K Yamada, Y Iwayama-Shigeno, K Matsuo, S Numata, Y Watanabe, T Ohnuma, T Kaneko, Y Fukuo, T Okochi, T Toyota, E Hattori, S Shimodera, M Itakura, A Nunokawa, N Shibata, H Tanaka, H Yoneda, H Arai, T Someya, T Ohmori, T Yoshikawa, N Ozaki and N Iwata
Using stringent criteria, we followed-up a genome-wide association study (GWAS) finding1 to examine the involvement of the developmental regulatory gene NOTCH4 in schizophrenia. This is the first study in a Japanese population that satisfies genome-wide significance between a particular single-nucleotide polymorphism (SNP) and schizophrenia.
来源：新华网
