Korean J Psychopharmacol.  2003 Sep;14(3):259-266.

The Association between Korean Schizophrenics and GDNF Gene Polymorphism

• Kim KY
• Kim JW
• Lee HJ
• Cho AR
• Chang HI

Abstract

OBJECTIVE
The association of neurotrophic factors with the etiology of schizophrenia has been widely studied. Among them, glial cell line-derived neurotrophic factor (GDNF) is known to promote the survival and differentiation of dopaminergic neurons. Considering dopamine hypothesis and neurodevelopmental theory, GDNF gene may be related with schizophrenia. In this study, we tried to clarify the association between schizophrenia and GDNF gene polymorphism. METHODS: Genotype and allele frequencies in the promoter and intron regions of GDNF gene were studied by using restriction fragment length polymorphism to compare 180 Korean schizophrenics with 105 Korean controls. RESULTS: We found significant differences between the schizophrenics and the controls in genotype and allele frequencies of BsaI polymorphism in the promoter region of GDNF gene (x2=18.208, df=2, p=0.0001/x2=11.264, df=1, p=0.0008). But no significant differences were found in intron region (p=0.06, p=0.984). CONCLUSION: These results suggest that polymorphism of GDNF gene might be related to the pathogenesis of schizophrenia.

Keyword

GDNF; Schizophrenia; SNP; RFLP

MeSH Terms

Dopamine
Dopaminergic Neurons
Gene Frequency
Genotype
Glial Cell Line-Derived Neurotrophic Factor*
Introns
Nerve Growth Factors
Polymorphism, Restriction Fragment Length
Promoter Regions, Genetic
Schizophrenia
Dopamine
Glial Cell Line-Derived Neurotrophic Factor
Nerve Growth Factors