Evaluation of the Relationship between the Znf804A Single Nucleotide Polymorphism Rs1344706 a/c Variant and Schizophrenia Subtype in Han Chinese Patients

Abstract

Objective:

Recent genome wide association studies (GWASs) assessing the relationship between schizophrenia (SZ) and the ZNF804A gene, particularly the single nucleotide polymorphism (SNP) rs1344706, have yielded conflicting results. Schizophrenia is a heterogeneous disorder, so it is possible that an association may be restricted to specific SZ subtypes and that population heterogeneity may obscure a contribution of ZNF804A allelic variation to SZ risk. We thus evaluated the association between rs1344706 and different clinical SZ subtypes in a large Han Chinese patient population.

Method:

The rs1344706 genotype was determined in 1,025 SZ patients and 977 healthy controls using polymerase chain reaction restriction fragment length polymorphisms (PCR-RFLPs). The clinical SZ subtypes included paranoid, catatonic, disintegrated, and undifferentiated, diagnosed according to the Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders-Fourth Edition IV (DSM-IV).

Results:

No significant differences in genotype and allele frequencies were found between controls and either the total SZ population (A > C, χ² = 4.339, 2.994; p = 0.227, 0.087, respectively) or paranoid SZ patients (χ² = 2.053, 0.002; p = 0.562, 0.973, respectively). However, there was a significant association between genotype frequency and SZ subtype (χ² = 12.632, p = 0.049).

Conclusions:

We found no evidence that the ZNF804A SNP rs1344706 is a susceptibility locus for SZ. However, conflicting results from previous association studies may be due to genetic heterogeneity between different patient SZ subtypes.