Screen For Exonic Mutations Of DRD2Gene In Major Depressive Patients

Depression is a severe and recurrent mental disorder characterized by a state of lowmood,loss of interest,difficulty in thinking and concentrating,loss of interest inactivities,pessimistic and worldweary,poor sleep and poor diet and so on.Research showsthat about15%of patients with severe major depressive disorder are all have suicidalbehavior and at least66%of people with depression die by suicide. According to the WorldHealth Organization(WHO) research, its global prevalence is about3.1%.In mental disorders,the prevalence of depression is close to that of the schizophrenia and takes up the second.According to the forecast about the global disease burden from Harvard University、WHO andworld bank, depression is expected to be the second leading cause of disability for peopleof all ages by2020. Therefore, depression research is becoming more and more important.Though the etiopathogenesis of depression are still not clear, most research shows that it isthe result of mutual-interaction by both of the environmental and genetic factors. In recentyears, association and linkage analysis have discovered many candidate genes andchromosomal regions related to its pathogenesis. Dopamine D2receptor gene (DRD2) isconsidered to be an important susceptibility gene for schizophrenia and depression. Locatedin human chromosome11q23.2, the DRD2gene plays an important role in central nervoussystem.It is also related to drug addiction, learning, memory, and neuropsychiatricdisorders.ObjectiveTo screen for exonic mutations of DRD2gene in depressive patientsMethodsStage1: A total of238depressive patients were recruited from the department of Shandong Mental Health Center (2006-2010). The patients were devided into three groups:96cases,96cases and46cases. A total of1,095healthy controls were blood donors from theBlood Center of Shandong Province, and they were divided into two groups:95cases and1000cases.Stage2: A totaol of15pairs of primers covering all of the exonic sequences of DRD2gene were applied to amplify the5pooled DNA samples of depressive patients (96,96and46) and controls（95and1000).PCR products were scanned by high resolution meltingcurve analysis (HRM) and Tc was determined, then the PCR products were diluted40timesas template for COLD-PCR amplification, and then HRM was carried out again to comparethe curve differences of each cases group to each control group respectively.ResultsNo mutations of DRD2gene in depressive patients were detected.ConclusionThe etiology of depression is not resulted from the exonic mutations of the DRD2gene.