Lack of association between TNFα rs1800629 polymorphism and schizophrenia risk: A meta-analysis

Evidence has suggested that tumour necrosis factor α (TNFα) may be involved in the aetiology of schizophrenia, but the underlying association between TNFα-308G/A polymorphism (rs1800629) and schizophrenia risk is still ambiguous. This meta-analysis was performed to quantitatively summarise the evidence for such a relationship. Eligible studies were identified by searching PubMed, EMBASE, CNKI (China National Knowledge Infrastructure), CBM (Chinese Biomedical Literature Database) and WANFANG databases within a range of published years from 1990 to July 2012. The odds ratio (OR) corresponding to the 95% confidence interval (CI) was used to assess the different associations. Twenty-one studies with 4340 cases and 5745 controls were included in this meta-analysis. The pooled examination displayed that there was no significant association between TNFα-308G/A polymorphism and susceptibility to schizophrenia overall (OR=1.047, 95% CI=0.876–1.253, P=0.614 for A vs. G), and no difference in Caucasian subgroup (OR=1.041, 95% CI=0.815–1.331, P=0.747) and Asian subgroup (OR=1.057, 95% CI=0.807–1.386, P=0.686). Lack of association was also found in males (OR=0.862, 95% CI=0.413–1.797, P=0.692) and females (OR=0.797, 95% CI=0.579–1.097, P=0.163) with a dominant model. Taken together, this meta-analysis suggests that TNFα-308G/A polymorphism may not be associated with schizophrenia susceptibility.