Schizophrenia and angiotensin converting enzyme gene association in Turkish patients

Abstract

Background: Although there is an increasing number of publications about the involvement of angiotensin converting enzyme (ACE) insertion/deletion (I/D) polymorphism in mood disorders, none of them has been able to show any linkage between allele or genotypic distributions and schizophrenia. However, there are number of reports associating brain and cerebrospinal fluid ACE levels with schizophrenia. Aim: We investigated the possibility of an association between ACE I/D polymorphism and schizophrenia. Method: Our study comprised 155 unrelated subjects who strictly met DSM-IV criteria for schizophrenia, and 174 healthy unrelated controls, all were of Turkish origin. The analysis of ACE polymorphism was performed using an established polymerase chain reaction method. Results: The I/I genotype of ACE significantly less frequent and I/D genotype was more frequent in schizophrenic patients compared to the controls (p=0.015). This difference was mostly due to the significant difference in men but not in women. The ACE genotypes did not differ between clinical subgroups of schizophrenia (p=0.10). Conclusion: The results of our study suggests that ACE I/I polymorphism is associated with schizophrenia at least in this group of Turkish patients. © Universitätsverlag Ulm GmbH 2004.