The serotonin transporter is a compelling candidate gene to examine in bipolar and unipolar affective disorder, since drugs that specifically inhibit the serotonin transporter can successfully treat depression. Previous association studies of a VNTR polymorphism in intron 2 and a functional insertion/deletion polymorphism in the promoter of this gene have produced conflicting results. The present study examined allele and genotype frequencies for both of these polymorphisms and resulting haplotypes in 87 English Caucasian bipolar patients, 125 English Caucasian unipolar affective disorder patients, and 174 controls. No significant associations were detected when these unipolar or bipolar cases were compared either separately or as a pooled "affective disorder" group to the controls. A meta-analysis of over 1,400 individuals of European Caucasian origin was then performed, comprising 772 controls, 375 bipolar and 299 unipolar patients for the VNTR polymorphism, and 739 controls, 392 bipolar and 275 unipolar patients for the promoter polymorphism. A significant association of promoter allele 2 was shown with bipolar (estimated odds ratio 1.21; 95% confidence interval 1.00-1.45), unipolar (OR 1.23; 95% CI 1.01-1.42), and combined bipolar + unipolar groups (OR 1.22; 95% CI 1.04-1.42). There was no demonstrable allelic association of the VNTR polymorphism with affective disorder: for the combined bipolar + unipolar group the odds ratios for VNTR alleles 9 and 10, compared with the common allele 12 were 1.05 (95% CI 0.56-1.95) and 0.90 (95% CI 0.77-1.05). These results suggest that the promoter allele 2, which has previously been shown to result in lower levels of serotonin transporter transcription, may be associated with affective disorder risk.

Objectives-Recent data suggest that wild type huntingtin can protect against apoptosis in the testis of mice expressing full length huntingtin transgenes with expanded CAG repeats. It is not clear if this protective eVect was confined to particular cell types, or if wild type huntingtin exerted its protective eVect in this model by simply reducing the formation of toxic proteolytic fragments from mutant huntingtin. Methods-We cotransfected neuronal (SK-N-SH, human neuroblastoma) and non-neuronal (COS-7, monkey kidney)cell lines with HD exon 1 (containing either 21 or 72 CAG repeats) construct DNA and either full length wild type huntingtin or pFLAG (control vector). Results-Full length wild type huntingtin significantly reduced cell death resulting from the mutant HD exon 1 fragments containing 72 CAG repeats in both cell lines. Wild type huntingtin did not significantly modulate cell death caused by transfection of HD exon 1 fragments containing 21 CAG repeats in either cell line. Conclusions-Our results suggest that wild type huntingtin can significantly reduce the cellular toxicity of mutant HD exon 1 fragments in both neuronal and non-neuronal cell lines. This suggests that wild type huntingtin can be protective in diVerent cell types and that it can act against the toxicity caused by a mutant huntingtin fragment as well as against a full length transgene. (J Med Genet 2001;38:450-452)

Although many interesting findings have accumulated from studies of HD and other polyglutamine diseases, there remain many unresolved issues pertaining to the exact roles of intranuclear inclusions and protein aggregates, the mechanisms of selective neuronal death and delayed onset of illness. Further knowledge in these areas will inspire the development of novel therapeutic strategies.

Monoamine oxidases catalyse the oxidative degradation of biogenic amines including neurotransmitters such as noradrenaline, dopamine, and 5-hydroxytryptamine (5-HT). Three groups have reported positive associations of the monoamine oxidase A (MAOA) gene with bipolar affective disorder although other studies have been negative. In an extension of a previous study [Rubinsztein et al., 1996: Human Molec Genet 5:779-782] we report association studies of MAOA polymorphic markers and affective disorders. The polymorphisms comprised a CA-repeat microsatellite in intron 2 and a Fnu4HI G/T silent polymorphism at position 941 of the cDNA sequence. No significant differences were found when the control allele frequencies were compared with those in bipolar, unipolar, or combined bipolar + unipolar groups. Meta-analyses were then performed to include the data of all published studies using the MAOA microsatellite and Fnu4HI polymorphisms. Separate meta-analyses were performed for Caucasian and Japanese studies, as allele frequencies of the microsatellite in these populations were markedly different. Associations of bipolar affective disorder in pooled male and female groups were found with the MAOA microsatellite in both the Caucasian (P < 0.02) and the Japanese (P < 0.02) meta-analyses. In view of these positive associations, and as previous results have shown that coding variants do not account for the normal population variation in MAOA activity, over 1,300 bp of the promoter were sequenced in 22 bipolar cases and 1 control. A novel polymorphic promoter variable number of tandem repeats (VNTR) located approximately 1,200 bp upstream from the translation start site was demonstrated. However, there was no association of this promoter VNTR with affective disorder. These results suggest that there may be functional variants in other regions of the MAOA gene or neighbouring genes that affect bipolar affective disorder risk.

No abstract

Consistent deficits in the cholinergic system are evident in the brains of Alzheimer's Disease (AD) patients, including reductions in the activities of acetylcholine, acetylcholinesterase (AChE), and choline acetyltransferase (ChAT), increased butyrylcholinesterase (BChE) activity, and a selective loss of nicotinic acetylcholine receptors (nAChRs). Accordingly, we have analyzed polymorphisms in the genes encoding AChE, ChAT, BChE, and several of the subunit genes from neuronal nAChRs, for genetic associations with late-onset AD. A significant association for disease was detected for a non-coding polymorphism in ChAT (allele chi(1) (2) = 12.84, P = 0.0003; genotype chi(2) (2) = 11.89, P = 0.0026). Although replication analysis did not confirm the significance of this finding when the replication samples were considered alone (allele chi(1) (2) = 1.02, P = 0.32; genotype chi(2) (2) = 1.101, P = 0.58) the trends were in the correct direction and a significant association remained when the two sample sets were pooled (allele chi(1) (2) = 12.37, P = 0.0004; genotype chi(2) (2) = 11.61, P = 0.003). Previous studies have reported significant disease associations for both the K-variant of BChE and the coding ChAT rs3810950 polymorphism with AD. Replication analyses of these two loci failed to detect any significant association for disease in our case-control samples.

No abstract

The serotonin transporter is a compelling candidate gene to examine in bipolar and unipolar affective disorder, since drugs that specifically inhibit the serotonin transporter can successfully treat depression. Previous association studies of a VNTR polymorphism in intron 2 and a functional insertion/deletion polymorphism in the promoter of this gene have produced conflicting results. The present study examined allele and genotype frequencies for both of these polymorphisms and resulting haplotypes in 87 English Caucasian bipolar patients, 125 English Caucasian unipolar affective disorder patients, and 174 controls. No significant associations were detected when these unipolar or bipolar cases were compared either separately or as a pooled "affective disorder" group to the controls. A meta-analysis of over 1,400 individuals of European Caucasian origin was then performed, comprising 772 controls, 375 bipolar and 299 unipolar patients for the VNTR polymorphism, and 739 controls, 392 bipolar and 275 unipolar patients for the promoter polymorphism. A significant association of promoter allele 2 was shown with bipolar (estimated odds ratio 1.21; 95% confidence interval 1.00-1.45), unipolar (OR 1.23; 95% CI 1.01-1.42), and combined bipolar + unipolar groups (OR 1.22; 95% CI 1.04-1.42). There was no demonstrable allelic association of the VNTR polymorphism with affective disorder: for the combined bipolar + unipolar group the odds ratios for VNTR alleles 9 and 10, compared with the common allele 12 were 1.05 (95% CI 0.56-1.95) and 0.90 (95% CI 0.77-1.05). These results suggest that the promoter allele 2, which has previously been shown to result in lower levels of serotonin transporter transcription, may be associated with affective disorder risk.