No effect of a common allelic variant in the reelin gene on intermediate phenotype measures of brain structure, brain function, and gene expression.
Biological Psychiatry. 2010-07-01; 68(1): 105-107
DOI: 10.1016/j.biopsych.2010.02.023
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Comment in
Biol Psychiatry. 2011 Mar 1;69(5):e17-8; author reply e19.
BACKGROUND: A recent genome-wide association study linked a common variant in
RELN (rs7341475G) with risk for schizophrenia in women. In the largest
neuroimaging intermediate phenotype study reported so far, we evaluated the
effect of rs7341475 on an extended array of different neuroscientific measures.
METHODS: Brain structure was evaluated with voxel-based morphometry and diffusion
tensor imaging. Brain function during working memory was examined with functional
magnetic resonance imaging. The RELN expression was determined in postmortem
brain tissue of the dorsolateral prefrontal cortex and hippocampus. A total of
736 datasets were examined (voxel-based morphometry: n = 230, diffusion tensor
imaging: n = 93, functional magnetic resonance imaging: n = 308, RELN expression:
n = 105).
RESULTS: Our analyses did not provide evidence for a significant main effect of
gene or gene x sex interaction effect on any of the examined measures.
CONCLUSIONS: This study does not suggest a significant impact of rs7341475 on
brain structure, function, and RELN expression, arguing that this single
nucleotide polymorphism and others linked with it do not affect brain measures
related to the biology of schizophrenia.