The clues in solving the mystery of major psychosis: the epigenetic basis of schizophrenia and bipolar disorder

Schizophrenia (SZ) and bipolar disorder (BD) are severe psychiatric diseases that are characterized by abnormalities of thought, behaviour, cognition and mood. the genetic findings obtained from past molecular genetics research failed to elucidate the molecular pathogenesis of SZ and BD and this situation showed that the risk factors for these diseases were not solely due to the DNA sequence. on the other hand, evidence from cell, animal and postmortem brain studies suggest that abnormal epigenetic mechanisms are important actors in the etiology of complex diseases such as SZ and BD. in this review, epigenetic evidences that obtained from DNA methylation, post-translational histone modifications and non-coding RNA studies in SZ and BD were summarized and the importance of this evidences for advances in the diagnosis and treatment of SZ and BD were discussed briefly.