Screening of three ERBB4 gene polymorphisms in a group of Turkish schizophrenia patients and controls / ERBB4 genindeki üç polimorfizmin bir Türk şizofreni hasta grubunda ve kontrollerde taranması

Abstract

AbstractObjective: The human ERBB4 gene (v-erb-a erithroblastic leukemia viral oncogene homology 4) codes for the ErbB4 receptor protein. One of the ligands of ErbB4 receptor is Neuregulin-1 and it is coded by NRG1 gene which is reported to be a susceptibility gene for schizophrenia. Since ErbB4 receptor is activated by binding of Neuregulin-1, ERBB4 gene is thought to be involved in development of schizophrenia (SZ) as well. Even though several association, expression and animal studies supported this idea and resulted with association between the disease and several single nucleotide polymorphisms (SNP) in the ERBB4 gene, independent studies done in different populations did not replicate that result. In the present study we aimed to get clues about involvement of three ERBB4 SNPs -which were found to be associated with schizophrenia in some other populations- in development of schizophrenia in a group of Turkish patients.Methods: We screened 3 SNPs (rs707284, rs7598440 and rs839523) in a group of Turkish schizophrenia patients and a matched control group from Malatya-Turkey to test the presence of such an association. For SNP genotyping, we used a real-time PCR based method and we evaluated the results with chi-square test. We have analyzed the haplotypes constituted by those three SNPs for multiple locus associations as well as analyzing each for single SNP associations.Results: After SNP genotyping and statistical tests comparing our case and control groups for allele, genotype and haplotype distributions, there was no significant difference between those two groups for three SNPs we screened.Conclusion: We were not able to find a significant evidence for presence of an association between three SNPs located in the ERBB4 gene and schizophrenia in our patients.