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CNR1, central cannabinoid receptor gene, associated with susceptibility to hebephrenic schizophrenia

Molecular Psychiatry volume 7, pages 515–518 (2002)Cite this article

Abstract

To examine the cannabinoid hypothesis for pathogenesis of schizophrenia, we examined two kinds of polymorphisms of the CNR1 gene, which encodes human CB1 receptor, a subclass of central cannabinoid receptors, in schizophrenics and age-matched controls in the Japanese population. Allelic and genotypic distributions of polymorphism 1359G/A at codon 453 in the coding region and AAT triplet repeats in the 3′ flanking region in the Japanese population were quite different from those in Caucasians. Although the polymorphism 1359G/A was not associated with schizophrenia, the triplet repeat polymorphism of the CNR1 gene was significantly associated with schizophrenia, especially the hebephrenic subtype (P = 0.0028). Hebephrenic schizophrenia showed significantly increased rate of the 9 repeat allele (P = 0.032, OR = 2.30, 95% CI (1.91–2.69)), and decreased rate of the 17 repeat allele (P = 0.011, OR = 0.208, 95% CI (0.098–0.439)). The present findings indicated that certain alleles or genotypes of the CNR1 gene may confer a susceptibility of schizophrenia, especially of the hebephrenic type.

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Acknowledgements

The authors are grateful to Dr Donn R Muhleman (Department of Medical Genetics, City of Hope, National Medical Center and Beckman Research Institute, USA) for providing sequence information on the CNR1 triplet repeats, and to Zikei Institute of Psychiatry (Okayama, Japan) for support in part by a grant.

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. Department of Neuropsychiatry, Okayama University Graduate School of Medicine and Dentistry, Okayama, Japan

    H Ujike, M Takaki, K Nakata, Y Tanaka & S Kuroda

  2. Zikei Hospital, Okayama, Japan

    K Nakata & T Takeda

  3. Department of Psychiatry, Johns Hopkins University School of Medicine, Baltimore, USA

    Y Tanaka

  4. Takami Hospital, Okayama, Japan

    M Kodama

  5. Takaoka Hospital, Himeji, Japan

    Y Fujiwara

  6. Kasaoka Hospital, Kasaoka, Japan

    A Sakai

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  1. H Ujike
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Correspondence to H Ujike.

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Ujike, H., Takaki, M., Nakata, K. et al. CNR1, central cannabinoid receptor gene, associated with susceptibility to hebephrenic schizophrenia. Mol Psychiatry 7, 515–518 (2002). https://doi.org/10.1038/sj.mp.4001029

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