Association between theCCK-A receptor gene and panic disorder

✍ Scribed by Ise, Kiminobu ;Akiyoshi, Jotaro ;Horinouchi, Yukiko ;Tsutsumi, Takashi ;Isogawa, Koichi ;Nagayama, Haruo

• Publisher: John Wiley and Sons
• Year: 2003
• Tongue: English
• Weight: 53 KB
• Volume: 118B
• Category: Article
• ISSN: 0148-7299
• DOI: 10.1002/ajmg.b.10020

✦ Synopsis

Cholecystokinin (CCK) is one of the most abundant neurotransmitter peptides in the brain. CCK appears to play an important role in the neurobiology of anxiety and panic disorders (PD) in both humans and animals. Recently, we reported that lack of CCKAR had a significant anxiogenic-like effect in rats. In this study, to investigate the role of CCKAR in PD, we compared the CCKAR gene in PD patients and normal controls. Subjects who fulfilled the DSM-IV criteria for PD were 17 males and 26 females. The sequence containing the Pst I polymorphic site in the boundary between intron 1 and exon 2 of the CCKAR gene was studied. Pst I digestion of the PCR products gave two individual alleles: A1 and A2. The A1 allele was the undigested fragment and the A2 allele was the digested one with two variant bands at 264 and 180 bp. Genotypic frequencies were 20.9% (A1-A1), 55.8% (A1-A2), and 41.7% (A2-A2) in patients, and 20.5% (A1-A1), 46.2% (A1-A2), and 33.3% (A2-A2) in controls. Allelic frequencies were 48.8% (A1) and 51.2% (A2) in patients, and 43.6% (A1) and 56.4% (A2) in controls. The chi-square test did not show a significant difference in either genotypic or allelic frequencies between patients and control subjects. The Pst polymorphism of CCKAR may not be associated with PD.