We have previously reported the apparent success of “nontemplate” analyses that are similar to those used herein when applied to data from four independent case vs control samples for bipolar disorder [20]. None of these bipolar vs control samples, individually, provided results with genome wide significance. These samples combined data from individual and pooled genotyping using different genotyping platforms. Despite these difficulties, the results of nontemplate analyses provided much more frequent identification of the same genomic regions and genes by clustered, nominally positive SNPs from multiple independent samples in bipolar disorder than we would anticipate by chance.
