Relationship of common variants in CHRNA5 with early-onset schizophrenia and executive function

Altered cholinergic neural transmission is hypothesized to increase susceptibility to cognitive deficits in psychotic disorders such as schizophrenia (SCZ). The nicotinic acetylcholine receptor α5 subunit gene (CHRNA5) is reported to be associated with cognitive function in nicotine-dependent populations and SCZ in non-smoking SCZ patients. Nevertheless, it is still not clear whether the CHRNA5 gene contributes to susceptibility to the cognitive deficits of SCZ without smoking. To further clarify the role of CHRNA5, we designed a two-stage, case-control study to examine the association between CHRNA5 and SCZ and its clinical features adjusted for smoking status in early-onset SCZ patients. A total of 15 tag single nucleotide polymorphisms (SNPs) on CHRNA5 were genotyped in the discovery stage, which included 485 early-onset SCZ patients and 1018 controls, and then, we replicated this association in a confirmatory population of 674 patients and 1886 controls. The rs16969968 SNP was identified as significantly associated with SCZ in both datasets. In addition, the severity of psychotic symptoms and cognitive deficits was assessed using the Positive and Negative Syndrome Scale (PANSS) and the Wisconsin Card Sorting Test (WCST). The rs16969968 SNP was associated with psychotic symptoms in patients and with cognitive function in patients and controls. Our results show that rs16969968 on CHRNA5 is tightly linked to genetic susceptibility, psychotic symptoms and cognitive deficits in SCZ in an early-onset Chinese population, suggesting that CHRNA5 may play an important role in the etiology of SCZ.