A molecular Genetic study in patients with schizophrenia and psychotic major depression

Abstract EN

-Background and aim : Schizophrenia and affective psychoses are severe and prevalent psychiatric disorders described in all cultures and populations.

The aim of the present study was to investigate the role of certain polymorphic variants of interleukin-1 beta (IL-1 ? ) gene in the susceptibility to schizophrenia and psychotic depression.

Subjects Methods: Forty schizophrenic and psychotically depressed patients, diagnosed according to the DSM IV criteria, were recruited randomly from the Department of Psychiatry, Alexandria University Hospital.

Twenty healthy subjects were also included as controls.

Polymerase chain reaction followed by restriction enzyme digestion was used to determine the allelic distribution of the C to T base exchange polymorphism at the positions -511 of the IL-1 ? gene promoter region in patients and in control subjects.

Results : No association between the interleukin-1 ?-511 C / T polymorphism and susceptibility to schizophrenia or major depression was detected.

Within the two patient groups, the distribution of different genotypes and alleles was not statistically different from those among the healthy subjects.

Conclusion : The data suggest that the interleukin-1 ?-511 C / T polymorphism does not seem to contribute to the susceptibility to schizophrenia or psychotic depression.