Study of the association between DRD2 Gene Ser311Cys and GSTM1 Gene polymorphism in Schizophrenia

Schizophrenia is a mental disorder affecting 1% of the world's population. Two of genes have been recognized to be involved in development of this disease: DRD2 and GSTM1.

This case-control study included 100 patients suffering from schizophrenia who referred to Yazd Neuropsychiatry Hospital. Also, 100 healthy patients without schizophrenia were selected as the control group. After DNA extraction, it was genotyped 100 schizophrenic and 100 healthy controls by use of restricted fragment of length polymorphism (RFLP) for Ser311Cys polymorphism and multiplex PCR for GSTM1. After performing relevant experiments and gaining some results, statistical analysis was performed using SPSS software16. In this study, Chi-square and logistic regression tests were used to investigate the relation between genotype of polymorphism and schizophrenia.

Data analysis showed that frequency distribution of Ser311Cys polymorphism genotypes between the patients and healthy participants was not significant (P: 0.121). Also, for GSTM1, there was no association between the polymorphism and schizophrenia. In general, the frequency distribution of the deleting gene between the patients and the control group was not significant (P= 0.089). And this polymorphism was significantly associated with symptoms (P = 0.012).

The results of this study show that Ser311Cys polymorphism and GSTM1 polymorphism is not common among the studied patients, therefore it indicates its non-effectiveness in the study population. However, because the study population is not representative of the entire Iranian population, further studies with larger population are needed.