Lack of association between schizophrenia and the phospholipase-A(2) genescPLA2 and sPLA2

The well-established role of genetic factors in the etiology of schizophren ia together with reports of allelic association with cPLA2, a phospholipase -A(2) gene, a reported increase of phospholipase-A(2) activity and the phos pholipase-A(2) hypothesis of Horrobin et al, [1995: Med Hypotheses 45:605-6 13] strongly support cPLA2 (PLA2G4A) and sPLA2 (PLA2G1B) as candidate genes for schizophrenia, In search for allelic association between these phospho lipase-Aa genes and schizophrenia, two samples of Chinese and European orig ins, in total 328 unrelated schizophrenic patients and their parents, mere investigated using Falk and Rubinstein's haplotype relative risk method. Bo th genes showed marginally significant evidence for association in the tota l sample (P less than or equal to 0.05), which, however, did not survive th e Bonferroni correction for multiple testing. In conclusion, our results do not provide support for the phospholipase-A2 hypothesis of schizophrenia A dditional studies will be necessary to rule out a possible confounding effe ct of niacin sensitivity as postulated by Hudson et al, [1999: Biol Psychia tr 46:401-405]. (C) 2001 Wiley-Liss. Inc.