No associations exist between five functional polymorphisms in the catechol-O-methyltransferase gene and schizophrenia in a Japanese population

Catechol-O-methyltransferase (COMT) is one of the enzymes that degrade catecholamine neurotransmitters including dopamine. The COMT gene is located on 22q11.2, a common susceptibility locus for schizophrenia. Therefore, COMT is a strong functional and positional candidate gene for schizophrenia. A common functional polymorphism (rs4680, Val158Met) has been extensively tested for an association with schizophrenia, but with conflicting results. Recent studies indicate that if COMT is implicated in susceptibility to schizophrenia, this cannot be wholly accounted for by the Val158Met polymorphism. To assess this view, the authors conducted a case–control association study (399 patients with schizophrenia and 440 control subjects) for five functional polymorphisms (rs2075507, rs737865, rs6267, rs4680 and rs165599) in Japanese subjects. There were no significant associations found between the polymorphisms or haplotypes of COMT and schizophrenia. The present study shows that these five functional COMT polymorphisms do not play a major role in conferring susceptibility to schizophrenia in Japanese.