SNPs associated with Schizophrenia: Evidence from Iranian patients

Schizophrenia (SCZ) is a complex chronic brain disorder. The brain-derived neurotrophic factor (BDNF) is a member of the neurotrophins family, which plays a role in neuron proliferation. In the present work, we aimed to 1-Provide evidence on the association of BDNF variants and Schizophrenia, and 2-Investigate the association between MIR-204 with BDNF. We investigated the association between single-nucleotide changes in rs112062096 of MIR-204 and rs11030099 in 3 UTR of the BDNF gene obtained by PCR-RFLP technique on 100 SCZ patients and 100 healthy individuals. The highest genotype frequency in rs11030099 was C/C genotype in both case and control groups. The Chi-square test showed that rs11030099 in the BDNF gene is associated significantly with the co-dominant and dominant inheritable model. The Logistic regression revealed that the A/C genotype in rs11030099, increased the risk factor by 2.33 times, while the A/A genotype increase by 5.29 times. In dominant inheritance, the A allele increased the risk factor by 2.46 times, while in the recessive model, the risk factor increased by 4.12. The highest genotype frequency in rs112062096 of the MIR-204 gene was A/A genotype (81%) in the case and G/G (69%) genotype in the control group. The results produced a significant difference between two groups (P < 0.0001). However, logistic regression revealed a significant difference between groups studied for the allele frequency. The risk factor was increased in the presence of G/G Genotype by 9.49 times. This is the first report on the association of the studied SNPs and schizophrenia.