Elsevier

Neuroscience Letters

Volume 277, Issue 2, 24 December 1999, Pages 123-126
Neuroscience Letters

A rare coding variant within the wolframin gene in bipolar and unipolar affective disorder cases

https://doi.org/10.1016/S0304-3940(99)00865-4Get rights and content

Abstract

A recent report has shown that Wolfram syndrome carriers (heterozygotes) are 26-fold more likely to require psychiatric hospitalization compared with non-carriers, and that Wolfram syndrome heterozygotes may constitute approximately 25% of individuals hospitalized with depression and suicide attempts. We analyzed a His611Arg polymorphism of the wolframin gene by the polymerase chain reaction (PCR) and HhaI restriction digestion, in 158 bipolar I and 163 unipolar major affective disorder cases, and 316 controls. Statistical analyses of allele or genotype frequencies do not support a major role for wolframin in affective disorder. HhaI restriction digestion and sequencing of PCR products from four affective disorder cases showed a heterozygous Ala559Thr change. The Ala559Thr variant was not detectable in 382 controls tested. Thus, the rare wolframin 559Thr allele deserves consideration as a risk allele for affective disorder.

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Acknowledgements

We thank Elizabeth Buckeridge and Caroline Crane for technical support and Dr. Sanjeev Jain for the collection of some bipolar samples. Drs. John Old, Kimmo Kontula and Katsushi Tokunaga for the Nigerian, Finnish and Japanese DNAs, respectively. R.A.F. is a Peterhouse Senior Research Associate in Neuroscience, J.S.R. is a Betty Behrens Research Fellow at Clare Hall, Cambridge in receipt of a Sackler studentship, and D.C.R. is a Glaxo Wellcome Research Fellow. The collection of unipolar samples

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