Assessment of an Apo-1/Fas Promoter Polymorphism in Korean Schizophrenia Patients

Apoptosis has been hypothesized to be involved in the pathogenesis in schizophrenia. A large number of genes are known to mediate the apoptotic process; Apo-1/Fas (CD95) is a well-known example of such genes. In the present study, MvaI restriction fragment length polymorphism, a polymorphic marker present within the Apo-1/Fas gene, was examined in a population consisting of 226 control subjects and 110 schizophrenia patients, all of them Korean in ethnicity. No statistically significant difference in the genotypic distribution and allelic frequencies was observed between the control and the schizophrenia patient group. To find out the precise effect of Apo-1/Fas gene polymorphisms on the susceptibility to schizophrenia, further studies are warranted to investigate possible involvement of other polymorphisms with a larger sample population.