Research

An association study of ADSS gene polymorphisms with schizophrenia

Fuquan Zhang¹ , Pak C Sham² , Hua Fan³ , Yong Xu¹ , Xuezhu Huang¹ , Honcheong So² , Yuqing Song² and Pozi Liu¹

¹Institute of Neurological disorders, Tsinghua University; Department of Psychiatry, Yuquan Hospital, Tsinghua University, Bejing, 100049, PR China

²Department of Psychiatry, University of Hong Kong, Hong Kong, PR China

³Department of Psychiatry, Beijing Anding Hospital, Capital Medical University, Bejing, PR China

author email corresponding author email

Behavioral and Brain Functions 2008, 4:39doi:10.1186/1744-9081-4-39

Published:	24 August 2008

Abstract

Background

Adenylosuccinate synthase (ADSS) catalyzes the first committed step of AMP synthesis. It was suggested that the blood-derived RNA of ADSS was down-regulated in schizophrenia (SZ) and one of the eight putative biomarker genes to discriminate SZ from normal controls. However, it remains unclear whether the reduction of ADSS RNA is due to the polymorphisms of the gene or not.

Methods

We attempted to examine the association of ADSS gene with schizophrenia in a Chinese population of 480 schizophrenics and 502 normal controls. Genotyping was performed by the Sequenom platform.

Results

The 6 marker SNPs (rs3102460, rs3127459, rs3127460, rs3127465, rs3006001, and rs3003211) were genotyped. The frequencies of alleles, genotypes, and haplotypes were tested between cases and controls. There was no significant difference of genotypic, allelic, or haplotypic distributions of the 6 SNPs between the two groups.

Conclusion

Our data did not support ADSS gene as a susceptibility gene for SZ in Chinese Han population. Large sample size study is needed to validate or replicate our association study, especially from other ethnic populations.