Secondary association of PDLIM5 with paranoid schizophrenia in Emirati patients

Schizophrenia is a clinically and genetically heterogeneous disorder of unknown etiology. PDLIM5 variants have been linked to schizophrenia and other related neuropsychiatric disorders and upregulated in the brain of schizophrenia patients suggesting a possible pathogenic role in disease progression. The aim of this study is to examine the potential association of schizophrenia in Emirati patients with previously reported variants in PDLIM5, PICK1, NRG3 or DISC1 genes. Consequently, we found a secondary association between PDLIM5 variants and the paranoid subtype of schizophrenia in Emirati Arabs suggesting that PDLIM5 may represent a determinate/marker for schizophrenia subtype specification. However, no associations were found with variants in PICK1, NRG3 or DISC1 genes.