To examine whether genes that predispose to schizophrenia also confer a predisposition to other psychiatric disorders such as bipolar affective disorder (BAD), we tested for linkage between the recently identified schizophrenia susceptibility locus D6S260 and the inheritance of BAD in 12 large Australian pedigrees. We found no evidence for linkage over a region of 12-27 cM from the D6S260 locus, depending on the model used. Our results therefore do not provide support for the continuum theory of psychosis.