A family-based association study of kinesin heavy chain member 2 gene (KIF2) and schizophrenia

Schizophrenia is a multifactorial disease characterized by multiple genetic susceptibility elements. The human KIF2 gene represents an orthologue of the murine Kif2a, which plays an important role in the transport of various membranous organelles and protein complexes on microtubules. To examine whether this gene is involved in schizophrenia etiology, we undertook studies of transmission disequilibrium in a cohort of affected family samples to test for association. Although, we failed to detect any positive results in single markers, a common two-SNP haplotype (rs2289883/rs464058, G/A) showed a significant association with the disease and a four-SNP haplotype (T/G/A/G) with a frequency of 23.4% was identified in parental chromosomes and showed a significant association with the disease (P = 0.00795). Our results demonstrate that the KIF2 gene, located at 5q12.1, is a potential schizophrenia susceptibility gene.