Association between the variability of the ABCA13 gene and the risk of major depressive disorder and schizophrenia in the Han Chinese population.

OBJECTIVES: The ATP-binding cassette transporter superfamily is one of the largest membrane protein families, which is responsible for transportation of substances across the membranes by utilising energy. Some research has bridged the variations in ABCA13 with occurrence of psychiatric disorders. To investigate the overlapping risk conferred by ABCA13 for both major depressive disorder and schizophrenia, we analysed tag single nucleotide polymorphisms (tag SNPs).

METHODS: We used TaqMan® technology to genotype 1045 major depressive disorder patients, 1235 schizophrenia patients and 1235 healthy controls of Han Chinese origin.

RESULTS: We found that rs7789493 (Pallele  =  7.23E-04, Pgenotype  =.001) was associated with major depressive disorder, while rs17132388 (Pallele  =  1.63E-04, Pgenotype  =  7.50E-04) and rs6583476 (Pallele  =  5.50E-04, Pgenotype  =.002) showed statistically significant association with schizophrenia.

CONCLUSIONS: Our results indicate that the ABCA13 gene may contain overlapping common genetic risk factors for both major depressive disorder and schizophrenia in the Han Chinese population. The study on variants conferring overlapping risk for multiple psychiatric disorders could be tangible pathogenesis support in clinical or diagnostic references.