2007 Fiscal Year Final Research Report Summary

The study of association between methylenetetrahydrofolate reductase gene and schizophrenia

Research Project

Project/Area Number	18591309
Research Category	Grant-in-Aid for Scientific Research (C)
Allocation Type	Single-year Grants
Section	一般
Research Field	Psychiatric science
Research Institution	Teikyo University
Principal Investigator	INADA Toshiya Teikyo University, School of Medicine, Professor (00184721)
Co-Investigator(Kenkyū-buntansha)	OZAKI Norio Nagoya University, Graduate School of Medicine, Professor (40281480)
Project Period (FY)	2006 – 2007
Keywords	MTHFR / schizophrenia / Japanese / gene / association study
Research Abstract	Schizophrenia is considered to be a neuiodevelopmental disorder with epigenetic mechanisms such as DNA methylation.Several lines of evidence have suggested that polymorphisms of methylenetetrahydrofolate reductase (MTHFR), a critical molecule for single-carbon transfer reactions, are related to the pathogenesis of schizophrenia.Although a number of studies demonstrated positive association between MTHFR polymorphisms and schizophrenia, there is lack of consistency.In the present study, we conducted the gene-wide association study using large-scale samples (case=723, control=767). There was no significant association with schizophrenia in single-marker analysis for 7 tagging SNPs of MTHFR gene in the Japanese population. Further investigation using ethnirally different populations will be needed to obtain conclusive results whether MTHFR contributes as a genetic factor for the developments of schizophrenia or other psycbiatric disorders.

(2 results)