Association study of an (AC)n dinucleotide repeat and schizophrenia in Asian and European populations
在亚洲和欧洲人群中对一个AC二核苷酸重复的多态性位点与精神分裂症的关联研究

Linkage studies have suggested that chromosome 15q13-q14 may harbor a susceptibility locus for schizophrenia. In the current study, the association between a (AC)n dinucleotide repeat polymorphism at D15S118 and schizophrenia was investigated using three independent samples from the Han Chinese population and the Scotland population. In the popula- tion-based study, a significant difference was found between the allele frequency distributions in schizophrenia patients andcontrol subjects in the Scottish samples (P = 0.04), but was not replicated in the Chinese samples. In a family-based study, no significant transmission disequilibrium from heterozygous parents to affected offspring was observed. Overall, our re- sults did not support the hypothesis that the (AC)n dinucleotide repeat polymorphism plays a major role in schizophrenia susceptibility, at least in the Chinese population. Further studies are needed to elucidate its role in schizophrenia susceptibi- lity in European population.