title: Human leukocyte antigen-DQB1 alleles are not associated with schizophrenia in Kuwaiti Arabs.
abstract: Schizophrenia is among the most severe and debilitating of psychiatric disorders and has a complex mode of inheritance. A susceptibility locus has been identified on chromosome 6 and some association studies involving human leukocyte antigen (HLA) genes have reported diverse results. The objective of the present study was to determine if there is an association between HLA-DQB1 alleles and schizophrenia in Kuwaiti Arabs. The frequency of HLA-DQB1 alleles was determined in a cohort of 195 Kuwaiti Arabs consisting of 81 schizophrenia patients and 114 ethnically matched healthy controls, using a polymerase chain reaction-sequence specific primers method. A total of nine DQB1 alleles were identified in this Kuwaiti cohort. The most prevalent DQB1 alleles in Kuwaiti schizophrenia patients were *0601 (28%), *0201 (23%) and *0501 (16%), respectively. However, no significant difference in the allele frequency was detected between schizophrenia patients and the controls. The DQB1*0602 allele, which has been negatively associated in African-Americans in previous reports, was not detected in the present Kuwaiti schizophrenia patients or controls.
authors.affiliation: Department of Pediatrics, Faculty of Medicine, Kuwait University and Hospital for Psychological Medicine, Kuwait. haider@hsc.kuniv.edu.kw
authors.forename: Mohammad Z
authors.initials: MZ
authors.lastname: Haider
authors.forename: Mohammad A
authors.initials: MA
authors.lastname: Zahid
mesh_terms: D000328:Adult; D000368:Aged; D000483:Alleles; D018912:Arabs; D015331:Cohort Studies; D004247:DNA / Q000235:genetics; D005260:Female; D005787:Gene Frequency; D006683:HLA-DQ Antigens / Q000235:genetics*; D059866:HLA-DQ beta-Chains; D006801:Humans; D007730:Kuwait; D008297:Male; D008875:Middle Aged; D020133:Reverse Transcriptase Polymerase Chain Reaction; D012559:Schizophrenia / Q000235:genetics*
chemical_list: D006683:HLA-DQ Antigens; D059866:HLA-DQ beta-Chains; C069051:HLA-DQB1 antigen; D004247:DNA