Study Report

Reference	Kurumaji, A.,2001 PMID: 11304832
Citation	Kurumaji, A., H. Nomoto, et al. (2001). "No association of two missense variations of the benzodiazepine receptor (peripheral) gene and mood disorders in a Japanese sample." Am J Med Genet 105(2): 172-175.
Disease Type	Bipolar Disorder & Major Depressive Disorder
Study Design	case-control
Study Type	Candidate-gene association study
Sample Size	Controls(n=359),Depressive disorder patients(n=99),Bipolar disorder patients(n=94)
SNP/Region/Marker Size	2 variants
Predominant Ethnicity	Mongloid
Population	Japanese
Gender	Male/female:52/42 in BD patients,40/59 in MD patients and 192/167 in controls
Age Group	Adults : Mean age(SD)(year):51.4(12.4)[36.2(11.8) at age onset] in BD patients,55.9(13.2)[47.7(13.5) at age onset] in MD patients and 44.9(12.1) in controls

Sample Diagnosis	DSM
Sample Status	The depressive disorders were represented in 99 unrelated Japanese patients including 50 patients with a single episode of major depressive disorder (M/F=23/27), 38 patients with recurrent major depressive disorder (M/F=13/25), and 11 patients with dysthymic disorder (M/F=4/7). The bipolar disorders were represented in 94 unrelated Japanese patients including 67 patients with bipolar I disorder (M/F=36/31) and 27 patients with bipolar II disorder (M/F=16/11). A Japanese control group consisted of 359 unrelated healthy volunteers.Among the controls, 193 were paramedical staff members documented to be free of psychosis. The remainder were corporate employees who had requested annual physical examination but had not been evaluated for psychiatric disorders by a psychiatrist.
Technique	PCR and RFLP
Statistical Method	Differences in the genotype and haplotype distributions between the patient and control groups were assessed by the Monte Carlo method, using the CLUMP program with 10,000 simulations [Sham and Curtis, 1995].
Result Summary	However, no statistically significant associations with either bipolar disorders or depressive disorders were observed in the allele frequencies, genotype counts, or haplotype distributions for the two variations, although the present sample size had a moderate power (0.46-0.86). These results do not suggest that the BZRP gene plays a role in the genetic predisposition of affective disorders.