Long tandem repeats as a form of genomic copy number variation: structure and length polymorphism of a chromosome 5p repeat in control and schizophrenia populations

Abstract

Although we did not demonstrate a relationship between the 5p15.1 repeat and schizophrenia, our results illustrate that long tandem repeats represent an intriguing type of genetic variation that have not been studied in earlier connection with psychiatric illness. aCGH can detect a small subset of these repeats, but systematic investigation will require the development of specific arrays and improved analytical methods.