An association study of PCQAP polymorphisms and schizophrenia.
BACKGROUND
PCQAP is a member of the mediator family of transcription co-activators that is found in the region of 22q11, which is consistently deleted in DiGeorges/velocranialfacial (VCF) syndrome. As such, it is a gene of interest to behavioral geneticists because VCF is also associated with a high rate of psychosis and because defects in other mediator genes have been linked to psychosis and abnormal neurodevelopmental abnormalities. Recently, DeLuca and colleagues reported that polymorphisms in a trinucleotide repeat in exon 7 of PCQAP were associated with schizophrenia in a case-control study of Italian schizophrenics.


OBJECTIVE
To confirm and extend the prior findings, we conducted a case-control association analysis using DNA from 233 schizophrenics and 371 random controls.


RESULTS
Unfortunately, we did not find any significant differences in the distribution of CAG repeat alleles between subjects and controls.


CONCLUSIONS
These findings limit the role of exon 7 PCQAP polymorphisms in the pathogenesis of schizophrenia.
Sandhu
Harinder K
HK
Department of Psychiatry, The University of Iowa, Iowa City, Iowa 52242-1000, USA.
Hollenbeck
Nancy
N
Wassink
Thomas H
TH
Philibert
Robert A
RA
D016022:Case-Control Studies; D005091:Exons; D006801:Humans; D056892:Mediator Complex; D011110:Polymorphism, Genetic; D012559:Schizophrenia / Q000235:genetics*; D014157:Transcription Factors / Q000235:genetics*; D018911:Trinucleotide Repeats
C416944:MED15 protein, human; D056892:Mediator Complex; D014157:Transcription Factors