Patent ID: 8252534

Claim:
A method of diagnosing certain cases of schizophrenia or a schizophrenia spectrum disorder in a human individual, the method comprising: a. obtaining a nucleic acid sample from the individual; and b. determining the presence of one or more variants of a microRNA (miRNA) gene or allele in the sample, the one or more variants selected from the group consisting of: a G to A substitution at position 18 of let-7f-2 (SEQ ID NO:2); an A to G substitution at position 32 of mir-18b (SEQ ID NO:4); a C to T(U) substitution at position 8 of mir-505 (SEQ ID NO:19); a C to G substitution at position 13 of mir-502 (SEQ ID NO:17); a C to T(U) substitution at position 60 of mir-188 (SEQ ID NO:6); a G to A substitution at position 60 of mir-325 (SEQ ID NO:10); a C to T(U) substitution at position 30 of mir-660 (SEQ ID NO:33); a C to T(U) substitution at position 56 of mir-509-3 (SEQ ID NO:26); a G to A substitution at position 6 of mir-510 (SEQ ID NO:30); a G to A substitution at position 73 of mir-421 (SEQ ID NO:12); a T(U) to G substitution at position 15 of mir-934; (SEQ ID NO 43); a G to C substitution at position 66 of mir-890 (SEQ ID NO:37); a T(U) to C substitution at position 60 of mir-892 (SEQ ID NO:41); a T(U) to C substitution at position 26 of mir-450a-2 (SEQ ID NO:15); and diagnosing schizophrenia or a schizophrenia spectrum disorder in the individual when the one or more variants are present.