Association between Val108/158 met polymorphism of theCOMT gene and schizophrenia

✍ Scribed by Wonodi, Ikwunga ;Stine, O. Colin ;Mitchell, Braxton D. ;Buchanan, Robert W. ;Thaker, Gunvant K.

• Publisher: John Wiley and Sons
• Year: 2003
• Tongue: English
• Weight: 58 KB
• Volume: 120B
• Category: Article
• ISSN: 0148-7299
• DOI: 10.1002/ajmg.b.20037

✦ Synopsis

Abstract

Schizophrenia is a complex disorder with a multifactorial polygenic inheritance with several genes conferring susceptibility at many genetic locations, each with a small effect. An attractive candidate gene for schizophrenia is the catechol‐O‐methyltransferase (COMT) gene, which is a modulator of dorsolateral prefrontal cortical function. A missense G to A mutation in this gene that results in a substitution of Methionine (Met) for Valine (Val) at codon 108/158 (Val^108/158^ Met) has recently been identified in association to schizophrenia. We compared allele frequencies of the variant Val allele between 96 schizophrenia cases and 80 normal controls. We selected controls from a similar pool to cases in ethnicity and gender. The frequency of the Val allele was significantly higher in schizophrenia cases compared to controls (0.620 vs. 0.506; P = 0.043). Calculation of the population attributable risk suggests that the Val allele accounts for as much as 23% of schizophrenia in this population (range: 3–38%). These results provide support for a role of this variant in the etiopathophysiology of schizophrenia. © 2003 Wiley‐Liss, Inc.