J Korean Neuropsychiatr Assoc.  2002 Jan;41(1):69-75.

Polymorphism of CTLA4 Gene in Schizophrenia

• Kim YH
• Jun TY
• Pae CU
• Lee CT

Abstract

OBJECT: This study was performed to examine the relationship between immunogenetics and schizophrenia by analyzing polymorphism of CTLA4 gene, which is known to affect the apoptosis and the activation of T cells. METHOD: 116 schizophrenic patients who were diagnosed by DSM-IV and 149 normal controls obtained from the Catholic Hemopoietic Stem Cell Information Bank of Korea were analyzed. After extracting DNA from whole blood, we amplified CTLA4 exon1 genes by polymerase chain reaction and assessed by SSCP.
RESULTS
Genotype frequencies of CTLA4 G/G, CTLA4 A/A, and CTLA G/A between patients with schizophrenia and controls were different with statistical significance. Data also showed significant differences in frequencies of CTLA4 A and CTLA4 G alleles between the two groups.
CONCLUSION
In this study, we found a partial relataionship between CTLA4 exon 1 +49 region polymophism and schizophrenia. Further systemic studies for larger subjects including adjacent genes and diverse clinical variables in the future may reveal the effects of CTLA4 gene on the susceptibility of schizophrenia.

Keyword

Schizophrenia; CTLA4; SSCP

MeSH Terms

Alleles
Apoptosis
Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders
DNA
Exons
Genotype
Humans
Immunogenetics
Korea
Polymerase Chain Reaction
Polymorphism, Single-Stranded Conformational
Schizophrenia*
Stem Cells
T-Lymphocytes
DNA