A recent publication has revealed the impact of genetic control of gene expression in brain on Schizophrenia 24. Thus, our effort was aimed primarily at understanding the impact of genetic control of DNA methylation on Bipolar Disorder, a common complex disease for which epigenetic mechanisms have been proposed as critical for pathophysiology. The proposed epigenetic connection is consistent with such observations as reported clinical differences between males and females and the fluctuation (i.e., clinical remissions and relapses) of disease course 15. Our study implicates SNP-mediated regulation of epigenetic modification in the etiology of Bipolar Disorder. We found that susceptibility loci of Bipolar Disorder are enriched for genetic variation with substantial impact on local methylation patterns.
