Association between a single nucleotide polymorphism in neuregulin-1 and schizophrenia in Pakistani patients

Objective: To determine the association of single-nucleotide polymorphism8nrg433E1006 in the neuregulin-1 gene associated with schizophrenia.

Methods: This case-control study was conducted at the Fountain House, Lahore, and the psychiatric clinics at the Aga Khan University, Karachi, from 2010 to 2013.The total genomic deoxyribonucleic acid was isolated and single-nucleotide polymorphism8nrg433E1006 was screened by nested polymerase chain reaction followed by sequencing. These sequences, from patients and controls, were aligned with the human neuregulin-1-glial growth factor 2 gene sequence, which served as a reference sequence. The single nucleotide polymorphism genetic algorithm was characterised at position 433 in the neuregulin-1 gene by aligning test and control sequences with the neuregulin-1-glial growth factor 2reference sequence using ClustalW algorithm, implemented in the BioEdit software.

Results: Of the 630 samples, 321(51%) were of cases and 309(49%)of controls. Moreover, 99(30.8%) cases and 79(25.6%) controls rendered correct neuregulin-1 gene frames. Of them, the single-nucleotide polymorphism8nrg433E1006 was present in 62(62.6%) cases and 24(30.4%) controls. The analysis showed that the odds ratio of having schizophrenia is 3.8 times higher in the presence of this single-nucleotide polymorphism at the 92 bp of neuregulin-1 gene with the 95% confidence interval(p=0.0001).

Conclusions: There was a strong association of single-nucleotide polymorphism8nrg433E1006 in the neuregulin-1 gene with schizophrenia.