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Schizophrenia and rheumatoid arthritis: Exploring the link Researchers in the USA identify variations in eight genes that potentially confer differential risk for schizophrenia and rheumatoid arthritis. Previous studies have shown that patients with schizophrenia (and their relatives) have a reduced risk of developing rheumatoid arthritis and vice versa. Vishwajit Nimgaonkar, Madhavi Ganapathiraju and colleagues at the University of Pittsburgh compared single nucleotide variations in the genetic code that are significantly associated with these diseases. They found that the inverse risk between these disorders could be due to differences harbored in eight genes. Computational analyses of the protein interactomes of genes associated exclusively with rheumatoid arthritis and those with schizophrenia revealed common interacting partners that are known to be involved in immune and inflammatory responses, and shared disease pathways. Additional investigation of these proteins could shed further light on shared disease mechanisms.