Autosomal recessive inheritance of affective disorders in families of responders to lithium prophylaxis?
Alda M., Grof E., Cavazzoni P., Duffy A., Martin R., Ravindran L., Grof P.
In this paper we report the results of a study of the mode of inheritance in affective disorders responsive to lithium. Earlier we described a series of 71 families in which the genetic transmission was compatible with a single-gene model. We have now carried out an independent replication study on 25 newly recruited families in a different geographical location. The autosomal recessive model from our original study could not be rejected with the new data. In a subsequent analysis of the pooled sample of 96 families, a recessive model with a common predisposing allele (q = 0.16) and sex-specific penetrance (0.35 in males, 0.66 in females) fitted the data best. On the other hand, X-chromosome and polygenic models could be rejected. The finding of a major-gene effect represents a specific hypothesis that can be tested by molecular genetic techniques.