CNTNAP2 is significantly associated with schizophrenia and major depression in the Han Chinese population

CNTNAP2, located on 7q35-36.1, encodes a single-pass transmembrane protein mediating cell-cell interactions in the nervous system. CNTNAP2 has been suggested to play an important role in mental diseases such as autism and language disorder. However, we still do not know whether it also confers risk to major psychiatric disorders such as schizophrenia, major depression and bipolar disorder. We analysed single nucleotide polymorphisms (SNPs) previously reported to be associated with autism or language impairment in 1135 schizophrenia patients, 1135 unrelated major depression patients, 1135 unrelated bipolar disorder patients and 1135 unrelated normal controls recruited from the Han Chinese population. We found that the genotypes of rs17236239 were significantly associated with schizophrenia and the alleles of rs2710102 and rs2710117 were significantly associated with major depression. According to the location of significant signals, our study indicated that exon 13-15 of CNTNAP2 may play important roles in both schizophrenia and major depression in the Han Chinese population.

[1]  Lin He,et al.  SHEsis, a powerful software platform for analyses of linkage disequilibrium, haplotype construction, and genetic association at polymorphism loci , 2005, Cell Research.

[2]  B. van der Zwaag,et al.  Contact in the genetics of autism and schizophrenia , 2009, Trends in Neurosciences.

[3]  Tao Li,et al.  A partition-ligation-combination-subdivision EM algorithm for haplotype inference with multiallelic markers: update of the SHEsis (http://analysis.bio-x.cn) , 2009, Cell Research.

[4]  Olga V. Demler,et al.  Lifetime prevalence and age-of-onset distributions of DSM-IV disorders in the National Comorbidity Survey Replication. , 2005, Archives of general psychiatry.

[5]  R. Ikeda,et al.  Contactin‐associated protein (Caspr) 2 interacts with carboxypeptidase E in the CNS , 2009, Journal of neurochemistry.

[6]  P. Visscher,et al.  Rare chromosomal deletions and duplications increase risk of schizophrenia , 2008, Nature.

[7]  M. Schachner,et al.  Neural recognition molecules CHL1 and NB‐3 regulate apical dendrite orientation in the neocortex via PTPα , 2008, The EMBO journal.

[8]  J. Sebat,et al.  Linkage, association, and gene-expression analyses identify CNTNAP2 as an autism-susceptibility gene. , 2008, American journal of human genetics.

[9]  D. Geschwind,et al.  A functional genetic link between distinct developmental language disorders. , 2008, The New England journal of medicine.

[10]  L. Fañanás,et al.  Human genetic variation and mental disorders , 2009, Neurotoxicity Research.

[11]  Katarzyna Chawarska,et al.  Molecular cytogenetic analysis and resequencing of contactin associated protein-like 2 in autism spectrum disorders. , 2008, American journal of human genetics.

[12]  N. Laird,et al.  A 40-year perspective on the prevalence of depression: the Stirling County Study. , 2000, Archives of general psychiatry.

[13]  R. Belmaker,et al.  Major depressive disorder. , 2008, The New England journal of medicine.

[14]  A. Serretti,et al.  The genetics of bipolar disorder: genome ‘hot regions,’ genes, new potential candidates and future directions , 2008, Molecular Psychiatry.

[15]  Olga V. Demler,et al.  Prevalence, severity, and comorbidity of 12-month DSM-IV disorders in the National Comorbidity Survey Replication. , 2005, Archives of general psychiatry.

[16]  G. Abecasis,et al.  Genome-wide association scan for five major dimensions of personality , 2010, Molecular Psychiatry.

[17]  S. Faraone,et al.  Meta-analysis identifies an association between the dopamine D2 receptor gene and schizophrenia , 2003, Molecular Psychiatry.