NO ASSOCIATION OR LINKAGE BETWEEN THE 5-HT2A T102C POLYMORPHISM AND SCHIZOPHRENIA IN IRISH FAMILIES/

Recent findings of an association between schizophrenia and a T102C po lymorphism at the 5-HT2(2a) receptor gene (particularly with genotype 1-2 and 2-2 and allele 2) prompted us to investigate this marker in fa milial Irish schizophrenic patients, their relatives, and ethnically m atched unrelated controls; 247 probands and 249 controls were included in this study, In contrast to some studies, we found no evidence of s ignificant differences either in the frequency of the genotypes 1-2 an d 2-2 or allele 2 between the schizophrenic patients and the controls, A transmission disequilibrium test, run on the full set of 265 famili es yielded no evidence to support linkage disequilibrium, Linkage anal ysis with both parametric and non-parametric methods yielded strongly negative results. Our findings are consistent with other recent associ ation studies which argue against the involvement of the 5-HT2a/T102C polymorphism in predisposition to schizophrenia. The positive findings reported to date might have occurred by chance or the apparent confli ct may be due to genetic heterogeneity between samples. (C) 1997 Wiley -Liss, Inc.