SCN8A as a novel candidate gene associated with bipolar disorder in the Han Chinese population

Background

Bipolar disorder (BPD) is a common, severe and recurrent psychiatric disorder. It has been suggested that BPD patients have a higher risk of suicide than patients with any other psychiatric illnesses. A recent study found that suicide attempt was associated with the SCN8A gene, which has been mapped close to one of the BPD susceptibility loci. Thus, SCN8A is likely to be a candidate gene for BPD.

Methods

In this study, three SNPs (rs1601012, rs303810, rs60637) were analyzed in 506 bipolar patients and 507 controls of Han origin.

Results

We found that two individual SNPs showed statistically significant differences between cases and controls in both allele and genotype distribution, but only rs303810 was still significant in allele distribution (p = 0.0164) after correction. No obvious linkage disequilibrium or haplotypes were observed among these SNPs.

Conclusion

Our results indicate that SCN8A may be a potential susceptibility gene for bipolar disorder in the Han Chinese population.