Science / Medicine : Schizophrenia Advance Reported

For the second time in two weeks, scientists reported cloning a gene of a brain communication system that may shed light on treating schizophrenia and other brain disorders. The gene tells brain cells how to make a dopamine receptor, a structure that the cells use to receive a chemical messenger called dopamine from other brain cells.

The newly cloned gene is for a type of dopamine receptor called D3, French researchers reported last week in Nature. The week before, other scientists announced the cloning of the gene for D1. The gene for D2 was cloned in 1988.

Dopamine receptors are sites of action for drugs used in treating schizophrenia and Parkinson’s disease, a potentially disabling condition that can include tremors, rigidity and gradual loss of spontaneous movement. Cloning the gene may make possible the development of new drugs for those disorders.

The new cloning may also lead to “powerful new strategies” for developing safer and more effective drugs to treat psychosis, the loss of touch with reality seen in schizophrenia, Solomon Snyder of the Johns Hopkins University School of Medicine in Baltimore said in a Nature editorial.