ASSOCIATION STUDY BETWEEN SCHIZOPHRENIA AND DOPAMINE D3 RECEPTOR GENEPOLYMORPHISM

Crocq et al, [1992: J Med Genet 29:858-860] reported the existence of an association between schizophrenia and homozygosity of a Ball polymo rphism in the first exon of the dopamine D3 receptor (DRD3) gene, In r esponse to this report, further studies were conducted; however, these studies yielded conflicting results, In the present study, we examine d 100 unrelated Japanese schizophrenics and 100 normal controls to det ermine any association between this polymorphism and schizophrenia, Re sults suggest that neither allele nor genotype frequencies of the DRD3 gene in the schizophrenics as a whole are significantly different fro m those of the controls, Further, we found no association between any allele or genotype and any clinical subtype based on family history of schizophrenia and age-at-onset, A significantly high frequency of hom ozygosity of a dopamine D3 receptor gene allele was not observed in th e schizophrenics as a whole, or in clinical subtypes, Our results sugg est that an association between the dopamine D3 receptor gene and schi zophrenia is unlikely to exist. (C) 1996 Wiley-Liss, Inc.