H. Kunugi et al., NO EVIDENCE FOR AN ASSOCIATION OF AFFECTIVE-DISORDERS WITH HIGH-ACTIVITY OR LOW-ACTIVITY ALLELE OF CATECHOL-O-METHYLTRANSFERASE GENE, Biological psychiatry, 42(4), 1997, pp. 282-285
Catechol-o-methyltransferase (COMT) is art enzyme that inactivates bio
logically active or toxic catechols. Previous studies have yielded inc
onsistent results on the relationship between erythrocyte COMT activit
y and affective disorders. Recently an amino acid change (Val-108-Met)
of the COMT protein was shown to determine high- and low-activity all
eles of the enzyme. Using polymerase chain reaction and the restrictio
n enzyme NLaIII, we genotyped 107 patients with bipolar disorder, 62 w
ith unipolar depression, and 121 controls. Neither bipolar nor unipola
r patients differ significantly in the genotypic or allelic frequency
from the control group. Even when the bipolar and unipolar patients we
re pooled into a single group, the distributions of both the genotypes
and the alleles for the patient group were similar to those for the c
ontrols. We conclude that genetic variation that determines high and l
ow activities of COMT does not have a major effect on the vulnerabilit
y to affective disorders in our sample. (C) 1997 Society of Biological
Psychiatry.