title: Norepinephrine transporter gene polymorphism is not associated with susceptibility to alcohol dependence.
abstract: 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.
authors.affiliation: Department of Psychiatry, Pomeranian Academy of Medicine, ul. Broniewskiego 26, 71-460 Szczecin, Poland. samoj@sci.pam.szczecin.pl
authors.forename: Jerzy
authors.initials: J
authors.lastname: Samochowiec
authors.forename: Jolanta
authors.initials: J
authors.lastname: Kucharska-Mazur
authors.forename: Ryszard
authors.initials: R
authors.lastname: Kaminski
authors.forename: Michael
authors.initials: M
authors.lastname: Smolka
authors.forename: Hans
authors.initials: H
authors.lastname: Rommelschpacher
authors.forename: Catrin
authors.initials: C
authors.lastname: Wernicke
authors.forename: Agnieszka
authors.initials: A
authors.lastname: Tymicz
authors.forename: Lutz Gerhardt
authors.initials: LG
authors.lastname: Schmidt
mesh_terms: 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*
chemical_list: D050484:Norepinephrine Plasma Membrane Transport Proteins; D012333:RNA, Messenger; C493227:SLC6A2 protein, human; D027981:Symporters