Catechol-o-methyl transferase (COMT) val158met polymorphism and adolescent cortical development in patients with childhood-onset schizophrenia, their non-psychotic siblings, and healthy controls

AbstractBackgroundImpulsivity and compulsivity are central to understanding a range of psychiatric disorders but also to understanding the spectrum of normative human behavior. It was recently shown that separable latent phenotypes of impulsivity and compulsivity could be fractionated. The possible genetic contributions to these latent phenotypes have yet to be elicited. The catechol-o-methyl transferase (COMT) Val158Met polymorphism (rs4680) regulates cortical dopamine degradation and is a key area of interest in this context.MethodsCOMT Val158Met polymorphism status was obtained from a random subset (n = 258) of young adults from an established cohort, for whom latent phenotype scores were previously reported. Differences in latent phenotype scores were explored between COMT groups using analysis of variance (ANOVA) and post-hoc t tests.ResultsThe Val-Val subgroup exhibited significantly elevated compulsivity scores compared to both other groups. Impulsivity scores did not differ significantly as a function of COMT Val158Met polymorphism status.ConclusionsThese results suggest that the COMT polymorphism, and by implication cortical dopamine degradation, influences the expression of a trans-diagnostic compulsivity phenotype, even accounting for possible confounding effects of impulsivity.

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Potential Impact of COMT-rs4680 G > A Gene Polymorphism in Coronary Artery Disease

Journal of Cardiovascular Development and Disease ◽

10.3390/jcdd5030038 ◽

2018 ◽

Vol 5 (3) ◽

pp. 38 ◽

Cited By ~ 3

Author(s):

Rashid Mir ◽

Musadiq Bhat ◽

Jamsheed Javid ◽

Chandan Jha ◽

Alpana Saxena ◽

...

Keyword(s):

Coronary Artery Disease ◽

Enzyme Activity ◽

Coronary Artery ◽

Indian Population ◽

Healthy Controls ◽

Comt Val158met ◽

Val158met Polymorphism ◽

Increased Risk ◽

Inheritance Model ◽

Artery Disease

Purpose: Catechol-O-methyltransferase (COMT) plays a central role in DNA repair and estrogen-induced carcinogenesis. The nonsynonymous single nucleotide polymorphism (SNP) in exon 4 G > A or Val108 > 158Met or rs4680 G > A influences COMT enzyme activity. The three phenotypes of the COMT enzyme activities include COMT A/A with low enzyme activity, COMT A/G with medium enzyme activity and COMT G/G with high enzyme activity. The Met allele is associated with low enzymatic activity resulting in higher levels of prefrontal dopamine. Conversely, the Val allele is associated with high enzymatic activity and lower levels of prefrontal dopamine. The Met allele has been associated with several psychiatric disorders such as panic disorder. Many recent epidemiologic studies have investigated the association between the COMT Val158Met polymorphism and coronary artery diseases risk, but the results are inconclusive. Therefore our study was aimed to explore the association between COMT Val158Met polymorphism and the risk of coronary artery disease in India. Methology: This study was conducted on 100 clinically confirmed cases of coronary artery diseases and 100 healthy controls. COMT Val158Met genotyping was performed by allele-specific polymerase chain reaction (AS-PCR). Results: A significant correlation was observed in the COMT Val158Met genotype distribution between the coronary artery disease cases and healthy controls (p = 0.008). The frequencies of all three genotypes, GG, GA, AA, reported in the CAD patients were 10%, 70%, and 20%, and 30%, 60%, and 10% in the healthy controls respectively. An increased risk of coronary artery disease was observed in the codominant inheritance model for COMT-GA vs. GG genotype with an OR of 3.5, 95% CI (1.58–7.74) p = 0.002) and COMT-AA vs. GG genotype with an OR of 6.0 95% CI (2.11–17.3) p = 0.003). The higher risk of coronary artery disease was observed in the dominant inheritance model for COMT (GA + AA) vs. GG genotype (OR 3.85, 95% CI 1.76–8.4, p < 0.007), whereas a non-significant association was found in recessive model for COMT (GG + GA vs. AA) (OR = 2.01, 95% CI (0.86–4.7) p = 0.72). The results indicated that A allele significantly increased the risk of coronary artery disease compared to the G allele (OR = 1.8, 95% CI (1.20–2.67) p = 0.004). COMT Val158Met polymorphism leads to a 6.0, 3.5 and 1.8-fold increased risk of developing coronary artery disease in the Indian population and providing novel insights into the genetic etiology and underlying biology of coronary artery disease. Conclusions: It is concluded that COMT-AA genotype and A allele are significantly associated with an increased susceptibility to coronary artery disease in Indian population. A larger sample size can be the key to progress in establishing the genetic co-relationship of COMT polymorphism and cardiovascular disease.

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Catechol-O-methyltransferase (COMT) Val158Met Polymorphism and susceptibility to alcohol dependence

10.1101/2020.04.26.20081273 ◽

2020 ◽

Author(s):

Amrita Chaudhary ◽

Pradeep Kumar ◽

Vandana Rai

Keyword(s):

Risk Factor ◽

Alcohol Dependence ◽

Keyword Search ◽

Meta Analysis ◽

Recessive Model ◽

Dominant Model ◽

Contrast Model ◽

Methyl Transferase ◽

Comt Val158met ◽

Val158met Polymorphism

Catechol-O-methyl transferase (COMT) enzyme catalyzes the metabolism of dopamine and other catechols in the brain. Several articles investigated catechol-O-methyltransferase (COMT) Val158Met polymorphism as risk factor for alcohol dependence (AD) but the results were inconclusive. The aim of present meta-analysis was to evaluate the association of Val158Met (COMT) polymorphism with AD. Authors performed keyword search of the four electronic databases- Pubmed, Google Scholar, Springer Link and Science Direct databases up to December 31,2019 . Total eighteen studies that investigated the association of Val158Met polymorphism with AD were retrieved. The pooled results from the meta-analysis (2,278 AD cases and 3717 healthy controls) did not show association with AD using all five genetic models (allele contrast model: OR = 1.02, 95% CI= 0.90-1.14, p= 0.03; homozygote model: OR = 1.06, 95% CI= 0.81-1.38, p= 0.69; dominant model: OR = 0.99, 95% CI= 0.85-1.14, p= 0.87; co-dominant model: OR = 0.97, 95% CI= 0.86-1.11, p= 0.71; recessive model: OR = 1.05;95% CI= 0.85-1.29, p=0.61). Results of subgroup analysis showed that Val158Met is not risk for AD in Asian and Caucasian population. In conclusion, COMT Val158Met is not a risk factor for alcohol dependence.

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