APOLIPOPROTEIN-E REGULATORY REGION GENOTYPE IN SCHIZOPHRENIA

Clinical observations indicate that a proportion of patients with schi zophrenia experience cognitive impairment, which suggests that a neuro degenerative basis might be involved in the etiology of schizophrenia. Apolipoprotein E (ApoE), which has been confirmed to be genetically a ssociated with Alzheimer's disease, is thus highlighted as a candidate gene for schizophrenia. Recently, novel functional polymorphisms in t he ApoE transcriptional regulatory region have been found. To investig ate whether these polymorphisms are associated with the risk of schizo phrenia, we genotyped 144 patients with schizophrenia and 134 controls for two polymorphisms (-491A/T and -21SGTT). No significant positive associations between both polymorphisms and schizophrenia were observe d. Our findings exclude the regulatory region of the ApoE gene as a lo cus that might confer increased susceptibility to schizophrenia. (C) 1 998 Published by Elsevier Science Ireland Ltd. All rights reserved.