30,000 different gene variations linked with mental illness.

From Reuters:

As many as 30,000 different gene variations may underlie schizophrenia and bipolar disease, meaning any kind of quick test to predict either disease is a long way off, scientists said on Wednesday.

Three studies by a multinational group of researchers analyzed the DNA of 10,000 people with schizophrenia, and 20,000 without, and found 30,000 common gene variations linked with the mental illness.

They also show just how complex such diseases are, the researchers told a news conference.

"It's like we've got a 'join-the-dots picture', and we now know we have several thousands of dots to be joined," Mick O'Donovan of London's Institute of Psychiatry, who worked on one of the studies, told reporters.

"But we don't even have numbers on them yet so we don't know in what order to connect them up."