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Published on: November 2, 2013
Insertional polymorphism of endogenous retrovirus HERV-K115 in schizophrenia
Takeshi Otowa1, Mamoru Tochigi, Mark Rogers
1Department of Neuropsychiatry, Graduate School of Medicine, University of Tokyo, Bunkyo, Tokyo 113-8655, Japan.
Abstract:
Retroviruses are implicated in the pathogenesis of schizophrenia. Human endogenous retrovirus type K115 (HERV-K115) is a full-length, potentially transcriptional retrovirus and is also polymorphic. We investigated the frequency of HERV-K115 in Japanese schizophrenia patients and healthy controls. No difference was found in the frequency between patients and controls (8.4% versus 9.4%, respectively). However, a marginal difference was observed in age at onset between the HERV-K positive and negative patients (p=0.057). The HERV-K115 insertion appeared to be more frequent in patients with younger onset than those with later onset. These results preliminarily suggest that HERV-K115 may not be associated with schizophrenia in general, but that it could play a partial role in early precipitation of the disease.
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