Abstract
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Sufficient evidence for a susceptibility gene for schizophrenia in 6p has been obtained by several groups in independent samples. However, the candidate region is large and a straightforward positional cloning approach may not be applicable. Nevertheless, screening for coding sequences may yield candidate genes which could be analysed for their possible contribution to the development of schizophrenia. The area between D6S469 and D6S285 (about 5 cM) may be the most likely one in our sample containing a susceptibility gene for schizophrenia. A BAC contig comprising about 3.5 Mb has been isolated from the region, in order to facilitate isolation of additional polymorphic markers for linkage disequilibrium studies and isolation of candidate genes, but also to provide sequence ready fragments for sequencing groups. Sixty-five BAC clones have been isolated by PCR screening the CITB human BAC library. Twenty-seven new STSs have been generated for filling gaps. Three new polymorphic multiallelic markers were isolated. At present, there are six gaps in the 3.5 Mb contig each not exceeding 200 Kb, which have to be filled by further BAC-end-sequencing.