Schizophrenia is one of the most devastating mental disorders that is determined in part by genetic risk factors.Disrupted-in-schizophrenia 1 (DISC1),a gene susceptible for major mental illnesses,including schizophrenia,plays multiple roles in neural development,including neuronal proliferation,maturation,migration and neurite outgrowth.DISC1 regulates neurite length via interaction with several intracellular proteins,such as NDEL1,FEZ1 and dysbindin.However,the signal transduction mechanism upstream of DISC1 in regulating neurite outgrowth remains to be elucidated.Here we show that DISC1 interacts with the intracellular domain of close homolog of L1 (CHL1),a member of the L1 family of neural cell adhesion molecules.