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Genome-wide association study of bipolar I disorder in the Han Chinese population

Abstract

We report the first genome-wide association study in 1000 bipolar I patients and 1000 controls, with a replication of the top hits in another 409 cases and 1000 controls in the Han Chinese population. Four regions with most strongly associated single-nucleotide polymorphisms (SNPs) were detected, of which three were not found in previous GWA studies in the Caucasian populations. Among them, SNPs close to specificity protein 8 (SP8) and ST8 α-N-acetyl- neuraminide α-2,8-sialyltransferase (ST8SIA2) are associated with Bipolar I, with P-values of 4.87 × 10−7 (rs2709736) and 6.05 × 10−6 (rs8040009), respectively. We have also identified SNPs in potassium channel tetramerization domain containing 12 gene (KCTD12) (rs2073831, P=9.74 × 10−6) and in CACNB2 (Calcium channel, voltage-dependent, β-2 subunit) gene (rs11013860, P=5.15 × 10−5), One SNP nearby the rs1938526 SNP of ANK3 gene and another SNP nearby the SNP rs11720452 in chromosome 3 reported in previous GWA studies also showed suggestive association in this study (P=6.55 × 10−5 and P=1.48 × 10−5, respectively). This may suggest that there are common and population-specific susceptibility genes for bipolar I disorder.

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Acknowledgements

This study was supported by Academia Sinica Genomic Medicine Multicenter Study and National Research Program for Genomic Medicine, National Science Council, Taiwan (National Clinical Core, NSC97-3112-B-001-014 and National Genotyping Center, NSC97-3112-B-001-015). We thank other members of the Taiwan Bipolar Consortium (Tsry Huey Mental Hospital, Pingtong, Taiwan, Jung-Kwang Wen, MD and Ching-Kuan Wu, MD; Beitou Hospital, Taipei, Taiwan, Sy-Ueng Luu, MD; Ju Shan Hospital, Taoyuan, Taiwan, Shi-Chin Guo, MD; Ping An Hospital, Pingtong, Taiwan, Wen-Hsiang Huang, MD) for their contributions in the recruitment of bipolar I patients and the families who devoted their time and effort to the study.

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Correspondence to A T A Cheng.

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Lee, M., Chen, C., Lee, C. et al. Genome-wide association study of bipolar I disorder in the Han Chinese population. Mol Psychiatry 16, 548–556 (2011). https://doi.org/10.1038/mp.2010.43

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