Norepinephrine transporter gene polymorphism is not associated with susceptibility to alcohol dependence.
Abnormalities in monoamine neurotransmission have been implicated in the pathogenesis of alcoholism, mood disorders and schizophrenia. Murine norepinephrine transporter gene (NET) has been mapped to a region on chromosome 8 where a quantitative trait locus for ethanol sensitivity. Therefore we tested whether norepinephrine transporter (NET) gene variants confer susceptibility to either alcohol dependence or severe alcohol withdrawal symptoms. There is a highly polymorphic silent G1287A mutation in the NET gene. In our study 157 alcoholics and 185 healthy unrelated matched control subjects were analyzed for a silent G1287A mutation. No significant differences in allele and genotype distribution between control subjects f(A)=0.33 and alcoholics f(A)=0.29 were found. No significant results were found in more homogenous subgroups, i.e. alcoholics with severe alcohol withdrawal (seizures, delirium), early onset age<26 nor dependent patients with positive familial history of alcoholism. These results suggest that the NET gene polymorphism in exon 9 accession number: mRNA: NM_001043, genomic contig.: NT_019610, is unlikely to be involved in the susceptibility to alcoholism and severe alcohol withdrawal.
Samochowiec
Jerzy
J
Department of Psychiatry, Pomeranian Academy of Medicine, ul. Broniewskiego 26, 71-460 Szczecin, Poland. samoj@sci.pam.szczecin.pl
Kucharska-Mazur
Jolanta
J
Kaminski
Ryszard
R
Smolka
Michael
M
Rommelschpacher
Hans
H
Wernicke
Catrin
C
Tymicz
Agnieszka
A
Schmidt
Lutz Gerhardt
LG
D000328:Adult; D000430:Alcohol Withdrawal Delirium / Q000235:genetics; D000437:Alcoholism / Q000235:genetics*; D000483:Alleles; D004252:DNA Mutational Analysis; D005091:Exons; D005260:Female; D005787:Gene Frequency / Q000235:genetics; D020022:Genetic Predisposition to Disease / Q000235:genetics*; D005838:Genotype; D006801:Humans; D008297:Male; D008875:Middle Aged; D008969:Molecular Sequence Data; D050484:Norepinephrine Plasma Membrane Transport Proteins; D011110:Polymorphism, Genetic / Q000235:genetics*; D012150:Polymorphism, Restriction Fragment Length; D012333:RNA, Messenger / Q000235:genetics; D027981:Symporters / Q000235:genetics*
D050484:Norepinephrine Plasma Membrane Transport Proteins; D012333:RNA, Messenger; C493227:SLC6A2 protein, human; D027981:Symporters