NEW YORK — Two huge international studies show that people who lack certain chunks of DNA run a dramatically higher risk of getting schizophrenia, a finding that could help open new doors to understanding and diagnosing the disease.
These deletions are rare, each found in less than 1 percent of schizophrenia patients. But each one boosts the risk of disease by as much as fifteenfold, by one estimate.
Scientists said studying such abnormalities may help them find new medications by shedding light on what causes the disease. And if enough rare aberrations can eventually be found, they may be combined into a test to help in diagnosis, said Kari Stefansson, chief executive officer of deCODE Genetics of Reykjavik, Iceland, and an author of one of the studies.
Schizophrenia is currently diagnosed by its symptoms.
The human DNA can be thought of as a very long string of letters — about 3 billion of them — that sometimes form “words,” or genes. Each deletion removes a section of about half a million to 2 million letters.
In the past, scientists have found specific genes and deletions linked to schizophrenia risk. But the new work is notable because two large studies independently identified the same two DNA deletions, and those aberrations have such a big impact on disease risk.
While the DNA deletions are linked to only a tiny fraction of schizophrenia cases, it’s not unusual that a very rare cause of a disease provides insights that apply more generally, said Dr. Pamela Sklar of Massachusetts General Hospital, an author of the other paper. She said such knowledge can lead to treatments for many people.
Both papers were published online Wednesday by the journal Nature. Experts not tied to the work praised the results.
“This is tremendous” for basic research into the disease, said Dr. Linda Brzustowicz of Rutgers University. But since the deletions found so far are related to such a small fraction of schizophrenia cases, she said it’s too early for companies to offer to test people for them.
