Abstract
Several studies have reported in schizophrenia a decrease of age of onset in successive family generations, and this observation is consistent with anticipation. Anticipation is known to result from expansion of CAG repeats in several neurodegenerative disorders. Longer alleles of the KCNN3 (hSKCa3) gene, which contains a highly polymorphic CAG repeat, and encodes a neuronal small conductance calcium-activated potassium channel, have recently been shown to be over-represented in sporadic cases of schizophrenia. In this report, we tested the hypothesis of an association between longer alleles of CAG repeat in the KCNN3 gene and schizophrenia in 20 families with clinical evidence for anticipation and in 151 unrelated schizophrenic cases. No significant difference in the distributions of allele frequencies was observed between familial cases of schizophrenia and controls, and between unrelated cases and controls. Furthermore, no intergenerational CAG repeat instability was detected in the 20 families. Our results do not support the involvement of the KCNN3 gene in the etiology of schizophrenia.
Similar content being viewed by others
Article PDF
Author information
Authors and Affiliations
Corresponding author
Rights and permissions
About this article
Cite this article
Bonnet-Brilhault, F., Laurent, C., Campion, D. et al. No evidence for involvement of KCNN3 (hSKCa3) potassium channel gene in familial and isolated cases of schizophrenia. Eur J Hum Genet 7, 247–250 (1999). https://doi.org/10.1038/sj.ejhg.5200278
Received:
Revised:
Accepted:
Published:
Issue Date:
DOI: https://doi.org/10.1038/sj.ejhg.5200278
Keywords
This article is cited by
-
Genomewide linkage scan of schizophrenia in a large multicenter pedigree sample using single nucleotide polymorphisms
Molecular Psychiatry (2009)
-
Meta-analysis of 32 genome-wide linkage studies of schizophrenia
Molecular Psychiatry (2009)
-
Molecular and cellular basis of small- and intermediate-conductance, calcium-activated potassium channel function in the brain
Cellular and Molecular Life Sciences (2008)
-
Electrophysiological characterization of the SK channel blockers methyl-laudanosine and methyl-noscapine in cell lines and rat brain slices
British Journal of Pharmacology (2004)
-
Multicenter linkage study of schizophrenia loci on chromosome 22q
Molecular Psychiatry (2004)