In many cases, SNPs significantly associated with a particular diagnosis are located within intronic regions and therefore do not alter the coding sequence of proteins, but rather may affect the binding of transcription factors or alter the post-transcriptional splicing of nearby genes. The rs1344706 SNP has been correlated with increased ZNF804a transcript levels in adult tissue [4], [9], and the risk allele has a decreased affinity for nuclear proteins compared to the common allele [10]. RNAi knockdown of ZNF804a in an immortalized human neuroepithelium cell line showed altered expression of genes involved in cell adhesion [11]. Although ZNF804a is a relatively strong candidate susceptibility gene, the function of the protein and the molecular mechanism responsible for enhancing risk for psychosis remains unknown. Our overall aim was to determine the function of ZNF804a by testing its ability to alter transcription of other SZ associated genes and by performing chromatin immunoprecipitation assays (ChIP) to determine if ZNF804a is specifically associated with promoter regions of the regulated genes we identified. To this end, we identify four SZ associated genes whose transcripts are regulated
