Influence of Brain-Derived Neurotrophic Factor Genetic Polymorphisms on the Ages of Onset for Heroin Dependence in a Chinese Population

Abstract

Aim:The study aims at evaluating the association between brain-derived neurotrophic factor (BDNF) gene polymorphisms and heroin-dependent patients in the Chinese population. Three polymorphisms of the BDNFgene (rs10835210, rs16917234, and rs6265) in 486 heroin-dependent patients and in 226 healthy controls were genotyped for analyzing the association of these polymorphisms with age of onset of heroin dependence. We defined the healthy cases as ''unknown phenotype'' and used the endophenotype (behavior traits) to stratify the heroin dependents group on the basis of self-reporting traits for examining the association between BDNF polymorphisms (rs10835210, rs16917234, and rs6265) and heroin dependence. Results: Allelic distributions of BDNF gene polymorphisms did not differ significantly between heroin-dependent patients and controls. However, we found that the AA carriers of BDNF rs6265 had an earlier onset of heroin dependence and a clearer tendency of family history of heroin-dependent than GG carriers after controlling behavior characteristics across rs6265 genotypes. Conclusions: Our findings suggested that the BDNF genetic polymorphism (rs6265) may have effects on the age of onset of heroin dependence among the Chinese population. The BDNF gene could contribute to vulnerabilities to heroin dependence.

BDNF rs6265 Polymorphism and Drug Addiction: a Systematic Review and Meta-Analysis

“…Two studies had been carried out within different ethnic groups [17] or different drugs [11]. After classification of these two studies into five subgroups, the number of studies was raised to 23. n Study characteristics [11,19,25,29], substance (5%) [24], nicotine (14%) [14,15,26] and alcohol (31%) [13,18,[20][21][22][23]27,30].…”

“…n Quality assessment of the studies The quality of the 23 studies is reviewed in Table 1 [11 -30]. Of the 23 reports, eight (35%) [12,14,15,18,19,27,28,30] were performed in both genders, 11 (61%) [11,13,16,17,20,23,[24][25][26]29] were carried out in men and one (4%) [21] did not identify the gender of the participants. Unlike Asians, most of the Caucasian participants were from both sexes (14 and 75%, respectively).…”

“…Unlike Asians, most of the Caucasian participants were from both sexes (14 and 75%, respectively). Out of the 23 studies, 12 (52%) reported an association between the rs6265 polymorphism and addiction to alcohol 317 468 Yes [25] Zhang et al [29] Nedic et al [20,23] and two were from Caucasian populations [27,30]. Of four heroin dependence studies, three reported significant associations; of these, one was from Taiwan and two were from China.…”

“…Approximately 45% of the studies analyzed the subjects' genotypes by using PCR-RFLP analysis [11][12][13][17][18]20,28,29], and the remaining studies used real-time PCR (23%) [14][15]22,27,30] or the MassArray™ (Sequenom, CA, USA) platform (32%) [16,19,21,[23][24][25][26]. More than 86% of the studies did not report the quality control method used on the genotype data [11][12][13][14][15][16][18][19][20][21][22][23][24][25][26][27][28][29][30].…”

“…The impact of this polymorphism has been widely studied in a variety of psychiatric diseases and drug addictions. Some studies conducted in the past have suggested a possible association of the rs6265 polymorphism with addiction to drugs, but the data have been inconsistent (Table 1) [11][12][13][14][15][16][17][18][19][20][21][22][23][24][25][26][27][28][29][30]. In order to more precisely evaluate the association between this polymorphism and the risk of drug dependence, a systematic review and meta-analysis of published case-control studies was conducted.…”