Ten GWAS for schizophrenia have been published (Athanasiu et al., Kirov et al., 2009, Lencz et al., 2007, Need et al., 2009, O’Donovan et al., 2008, Purcell et al., 2009, Shi et al., 2009, Shifman et al., 2008, Stefansson et al., 2009, Sullivan et al., 2008). Given that some GWAS had larger samples and more comprehensive genotyping than typical for the candidate gene literature, GWAS may be better placed to capture true associations than earlier studies. Indeed, GWAS have yielded highly significant and replicated associations for schizophrenia including genetic variation in the MHC region, TCF4, and ZNF804A (O’Donovan et al., 2008, Purcell et al., 2009, Shi et al., 2009, Stefansson et al., 2009). A lack of congruity has been noted between the hypothesis-driven candidate genes for schizophrenia and the best findings from GWAS. This may be typical for biomedical diseases where results from large GWAS infrequently correspond to a priori candidate genes (Hindorff et al., Hindorff et al., 2009).
