| Abstract |
schizophreniais a common severe mental illness affecting 0.3-2.0% of the world's population. The potassium channels are thought to have a role in modulating electrical excitability in neurons, regulating calcium signaling in oligodendrocytes and regulating action potential duration in presynaptic terminals and GABA release. Previous studies have reported that some potassium channel genes might be candidate genes for susceptibility toschizophrenia. In the present study, we chose three potassium channel genes, KCNH1,KCNJ10, KCNN3 investigate the role of potassium channels inschizophreniaby genotyping 23 SNPs (9 in KCNH1, 5 inKCNJ10and 9 in KCNN3) in a Han Chinese sample consisting of 893schizophreniapatients and 611 healthy controls. No significant difference in allelic or genotypic frequency was revealed betweenschizophreniapatients and healthy individuals. Nor was a significant difference in haplotypic distribution detected. MDR analysis revealed no gene-gene interaction within the three potassium channel genes. Our study suggests that the 23 SNPs within the three potassium genes we examined do not play a major role inschizophreniain the Han Chinese population. |